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®6e 5effers;on=lemen 
Compact 



A PAPER READ BEFORE THE CHICAGO 
HISTORICAL SOCIETY, FEBRUARY 16, 1915 



BY 



WILLARD C. MacNAUL 




THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 
1915 



^\^t Jetfetgonilemen Compact 

The Relations of 

Thomas JefFerson and James Lemen 

in the Exclusion of Slavery from Illinois 

and the Northwest Territory 

with Related Documents 

1781-1818 

A Paper read before the 

Chicago Historical Society 

February 16, IQI5 
By 

Willard C. MacNaul 




The University of Chicago Press 
1915 






Copyright by 

CHICAGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY 

iQiS 



ICI,A414924 



DEC -7 1915 



CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTION 

1. Sketch of James Lemen 7 

2. Lemen's Relations with Jefferson in Virginia . . 9 

3. Lemen's Anti-Slavery Mission in Illinois — 

Slavery in Illinois until 1787 11 

Prohibition of Slavery by Ordinance of 1787 . . 11 
The Slavery Conflict under Gov. St. Clair 

(1787-1800) 12 

The Slavery Conflict under Gov. Harrison 

(1801-1809) 13 

Slavery Question in the Movement for Division 

of Indiana Territory in 1808-9 ... 16 
James Lemen's Anti-Slavery Influence in the 

Baptist Churches until 1809 .... 16 
Slavery under Gov. Ninian Edwards (1809- 

1818) 19 

Slavery in the Campaign for Statehood in 

1818 19 

4. Available Materials Relating to the Subject . . 23 

5. Account of the "Lemen Family Notes" ... 24 

DOCUMENTS 

I. Diary of James Lemen, Sr 26 

II. History of the Relations of James Lemen 

AND Thos. Jefferson, by J. M. Peck . . 32 

III. How Illinois Got Chicago, by Jos. B. Lemen 37 

IV. Address to the Friends of Freedom . . 38 
V. Recollections of a Centennarian, by 

Dr. W. F. Boyakin 39 

VI. In Memory of Rev. Jas. Lemen, Sr. . . . 41 

VII. Statement by Editor of Belleville Advocate . 41 
VIII. Letter of Rev. J. M. Peck on the Old Lemen 

Family Notes 42 

3 



4 Contents 

PIONEER LETTERS 

IX. Letter of Senator Douglas to Rev. Jas. 

Lemen, Sr 46 

X. Announcement by J. B. Lemen .... 48 
XL Letter of Gov. Ninian Edwards to Jas. 

Lemen, Jr 49 

XII. Letter of A. W. Snyder to Jas. Lemen, Sr. 49 
XIII. Letter of Abraham Lincoln to Jas. 

Lemen, Jr 50 

XIV. The Lemen Monument — Lemen 's War 

Record 51 

XV. Sketch of Rev. James Lemen, Sr., by J. M. 

Peck 52 

XVI. Old Lemen Family Notes, Statement by 

Jos. B. Lemen 56 

References 59 



DEC -7 1915 



NOTE 

The materials here presented were collected in connection 
with the preparation of a history of the first generation of 
Illinois Baptists. The narrative introduction is printed 
substantially as delivered at a special meeting of the Chicago 
Historical Society, and, with the collection of documents, 
is published in response to inquiries concerning the so-called 
"Lemen Family Notes," and in compliance with the request 
for a contribution to the publications of this Society. It is 
hoped that the publication may serve to elicit further in- 
formation concerning the alleged "Notes," the existence of 
which has become a subject of more or less interest to 
historians. The compiler merely presents the materials at 
their face value, without assuming to pass critical judgment 
upon them. w. c. M. 



INTRODUCTION 

RELATIONS OF JAMES LEMEN AND 

THOMAS JEFFERSON IN THE EXCLUSION OF 

SLAVERY FROM ILLINOIS AND THE 

NORTHWEST TERRITORY 

In view of the approaching centennary of statehood in 
Illinois, the name of James Lemen takes on a timely interest 
because of his services — social, religious, and political — 
in the making of the Commonwealth. He was a native of 
Virginia, born and reared in the vicinity of Harper's Ferry. 
He served a two-years' enlistment in the Revolutionary War 
under Washington, and afterwards returned to his regiment 
during the siege of Yorktown, His "Yorktown Notes" 
in his diary give some interesting glimpses of his participa- 
tion in that campaign.^ His Scotch ancestors had served in 
a similar cause under Cromwell, whose wedding gift to one 
of their number is still cherished as a family heirloom. 

Upon leaving the army James Lemen married Catherine 
Ogle, daughter of Captain Joseph Ogle, whose name is 
perpetuated in that of Ogle county, Illinois. The Ogles 
were of old English stock, some of whom at least were found 
on the side of Cromwell and the Commonwealth. Cathe- 
rine's family at one time lived on the South Branch of the 
Potomac, although at the time of her marriage her home was 
near Wheeling. Captain Ogle's commission, signed by 
Gov. Patrick Henry, is now a valued possession of one of 
Mrs. Lemen's descendents. James and Catherine Lemen 
were well fitted by nature and training for braving the hard- 
ships and brightening the privations of life on the frontier, 
far removed from home and friends, or even the abodes of 
their nearest white kinsmen. 

During, and even before the war, young Lemen is re- 
puted to have been the protege of Thomas Jefferson, through 
whose influence he became a civil and religious leader in the 
pioneer period of Illinois history. Gov. Reynolds, in his 
writings relating to this period,^ gives various sketches of 
the man and his family, and his name occurs frequently 



The Jefferson-Lemen Compact 



in the records of the times. He was among the first to 
follow Col. Clark's men to the Illinois country, where he 
established the settlement of New Design, one of the earliest 
American colonies in what was, previous to his arrival, the 
"Illinois county" of the Old Dominion. Here he served, 
first as a justice of the peace, and then as a judge of the court 
of the original county of St. Clair, and thus acquired the 
title of "Judge Lemen." ^ Here, too, he became the pro- 
genitor of the numerous Illinois branch of the Lemen family, 
whose genealogy and family history was recently published 
by Messrs. Frank and Joseph B. Lemen — a volume of 
some four hundred and fifty pages, and embracing some five 
hundred members of the family. 

True to his avowed purpose in coming to Illinois, young 
Lemen became a leader of anti-slavery sentiment in the 
new Territory, and, undoubtedly, deserves to be called one 
of the Fathers of the Free State Constitution, which was 
framed in 1818 and preserved in 1824. His homestead, the 
"Old Lemen Fort" at New Design, which is still the com- 
fortable home of the present owner, is the birthplace of the 
Baptist denomination in Illinois; and he himself is com- 
memorated as the recognized founder of that faith in this 
State, by a granite shaft in the family burial plot directly 
in front of the old home. This memorial was dedicated in 
1909 by Col. William Jennings Bryan, whose father, Judge 
Bryan, of Salem, Illinois, was the first to suggest it as a 
well-deserved honor. 

James Lemen, Sr., also became the father and leader of 
the noted "Lemen Family Preachers," consisting of himself 
and six stalwart sons, all but one of whom were regularly 
ordained Baptist ministers. The eldest son, Robert, al- 
though never ordained, was quite as active and eflftcient in 
the cause as any of the family. This remarkable family 
eventually became the nucleus of a group of anti-slavery 
Baptist churches in Illinois which had a very important 
influence upon the issue of that question in the State. Rev. 
James Lemen, Jr., who is said to have been the second Amer- 
ican boy born in the Illinois country, succeeded to his father's 
position of leadership in the anti-slavery movement of the 
times, and served as the representative of St. Clair county 
in the Territorial Legislature, the Constitutional Conven- 
tion, and the State Senate. The younger James Lernen was 
on terms of intimacy with Abraham Lincoln at Springfield, 



Introduction 



and his cousin, Ward Lamon, was Lincoln's early associate 
in the law, and also his first biographer. Various representa- 
tives of the family in later generations have attained success 
as farmers, physicians, teachers, ministers, and lawyers 
throughout southern Illinois and other sections of the 
country.^ 

The elder James Lemen was himself an interesting 
character, and, entirely apart from his relations with Jeffer- 
son, he is a significant factor in early Illinois history. His 
fight for free versus slave labor in Illinois and the North- 
west derives a peculiar interest, however, from its associa- 
tion with the great name of Jefferson. The principles for 
which the latter stood — but not necessarily his policies — 
have a present-day interest for us greater than those of his 
contemporaries, because those principles are the "live 
issues" of our own times. Jefferson is to that extent our 
contemporary, and hence his name lends a living interest to 
otherwise obscure persons and remote events. The problem 
of free labor versus slave labor we have with us still, and in a 
much more complex and widespread form than in Jefferson's 
day. 

According to the current tradition, a warm personal 
friendship sprang up between Jefferson and young Lemen, 
who was seventeen years the junior of his distinguished pa- 
tron and friend. In a letter to Robert, brother of James 
Lemen, attributed to Jefferson, he writes: "Among all my 
friends who are near, he is still a little nearer. I discovered 
his worth when he was but a child, and I freely confess that 
in some of my most important achievements his example, 
wish, and advice, though then but a very young man, largely 
influenced my action." In a sketch of the relations of the 
two men by Dr. John M. Peck we are told that "after 
Jefferson became President of the United States, he re- 
tained all of his early affection for Mr. Lemen"; and upon 
the occasion of a visit of a mutual friend to the President, 
in 1808, "he inquired after him with all the fondness of a 
father."^ 

Their early relations in Virginia, so far as we have any 
account of them, concerned their mutual anti-slavery in- 
terests. Peck tells us that "Mr. Lemen was a born anti- 
slavery leader, and had proved himself such in Virginia by 
inducing scores of masters to free their slaves through his 
prevailing kindness of manner and Christian arguments." 



The Jefferson-Lemen Compact 



Concerning the cession of Virginia's claims to the North- 
west Territory, Jefferson is thus quoted, from his letter to 
Robert Lemen: "Before any one had even mentioned the 
matter, James Lemen, by reason of his devotion to anti- 
slavery principles, suggested to me that we (Virginia) make 
the transfer, and that slavery be excluded; and it so im- 
pressed and influenced me that whatever is due me as credit 
for my share in the matter, is largely, if not wholl}^ due to 
James Lemen's advice and most righteous counsel."^ 

Before this transfer was effected, it appears that Jefferson 
had entered into negotiations with his young protege with a 
view to inducing him to locate in the "Illinois country" 
as his agent, in order to co-operate w^ith himself in the effort 
to exclude slavery from the entire Northwest Territory. 
Mr. Lemen makes record of an interview with Jefferson 
under date of December 11, 1782, as follows: "Thomas Jef- 
ferson had me to visit him again a short time ago, as he 
wanted me to go to the Illinois country in the Northwest 
after a year or two, in order to try to lead and direct the 
new settlers in the best way, and also to oppose the introduc- 
tion of slavery into that country at a later day, as I am 
known as an opponent of that evil; and he says he will give 
me some help. It is all because of his great kindness and 
affection for me, for which I am very grateful; but I have not 
yet fully decided to do so, but have agreed to consider the 
case." In May, 1784, they had another interview, on the 
eve of Jefferson's departure on his prolonged mission to 
France. Mr. Lemen's memorandum reads: "I saw Jef- 
ferson at Annapolis, Maryland, to-day, and had a very 
pleasant visit with him. I have consented to go to Illinois 
on his mission, and he intends helping me some; but I did 
not ask nor wish it. We had a full agreement and under- 
standing as to all terms and duties. The agreement is 
strictly private between us, but all his purposes are perfectly 
honorable and praiseworthy." ^ 

Thus the mission was undertaken which proved to be 
his life-work. He had intended starting with his father- 
in-law, Captain Ogle, in 1785, but was detained by illness in 
his family. December 28, 1785, he records: "Jefferson's 
confidential agent gave me one hundred dollars of his funds 
to use for my family, if need be, and if not, to go to good 
causes; and I will go to Illinois on his mission next spring 
and take mv wife and children." 



Introduction 



Such was the origin and nature of the so-called "JefFerson- 
Lemen Secret Anti-Slavery Compact," the available evidence 
concerning which will be given at the conclusion of this 
paperJ The anti-slavery propaganda of James Lemen and 
his circle constituted a determining factor in the history of 
the first generation of Illinois Baptists. To what extent 
Lemen co-operated with Jefferson in his movements will 
appear as we proceed with the story of his efforts to make 
Illinois a free State. 

The "Old Dominion" ceded her "county of Illinois" to 
the National domain in 1784. Jefferson's effort to provide 
for the exclusion of slavery from the new Territor}^ at that 
date proved abortive. Consequently, when James Lemen 
arrived at the old French village of Kaskaskia in July, 1786, 
he found slavery legally entrenched in all the former French 
possessions in the "Illinois country." It had been intro- 
duced by Renault, in 1719, who brought 500 negroes from 
Santo Domingo (then a French possession) to w^ork the mines 
which he expected to develop in this section of the French 
Colonial Empire.^ It is a noteworthy fact that slavery 
was established on the soil of Illinois just a century after its 
introduction on the shores of Virginia. When the French 
possessions were taken over by Great Britain at the close of 
the colonial struggle in 1763, that country guaranteed the 
French inhabitants the possession of all their property, 
including slaves. When Col. Clark, of Virginia, took pos- 
session of this region in 1778, the State likewise guaranteed 
the inhabitants the full enjoyment of all their property 
rights. By the terms of the Virginia cession of 1784 to the 
National Government, all the rights and privileges of the 
former citizens of Virginia were assured to them in the ceded 
district. Thus, at the time of Lemen's arrival, slavery had 
been sanctioned on the Illinois prairies for sixty-seven years. 
One year from the date of his arrival, however, the Ter- 
ritorial Ordinance of 1787 was passed, with the prohibition 
of slavery, as originally proposed by Jefferson in 1784.^ 
Thus it would seem that the desired object had already been 
attained. By the terms of the famous "Sixth Article of 
Compact," contained in that Ordinance, it was declared 
that "there shall be neither slavery nor involuntar}^ ser- 
vitude in the said Territory, otherwise than in the punish- 
ment of crimes whereof the accused shall have been duly 
convicted." This looks like a sweeping and final disposition 



The Jefferson-Lemen Compact 



of the matter, but it was not accepted as such until the lapse 
of another fifty-seven years. But neither JeflFerson nor his 
agents on the ground had anticipated so easy a victory. 
Indeed, they had foreseen that a determined eflFort would be 
made by the friends of slavery to legalize that institution in 
the Territory. Almost at once, in fact, the conflict com- 
menced, which was to continue actively for thirty-seven 
years. Like the Nation itself, the Illinois country was to 
be for a large part of its history "half slave and half free" — 
both in sentiment and in practice. 

Two attempts against the integrity of the "Sixth Article" 
were made during Gov. St. Clair's administration. The 
trouble began with the appeals of the French slave-holders 
against the loss of their slaves. ^^ As civil administration 
under the Territorial government was not established among 
the Illinois settlements until 1790, both the old French in- 
habitants and the new American colonists suffered all 
manner of disabilities and distresses in the interval between 
1784 and 1790, while just across the Mississippi there was 
a settled and prosperous community under the Spanish 
government of Louisiana. When, therefore, the French 
masters appealed to Gen. St. Clair, in 1787, to protect them 
against the loss of the principal part of their wealth, repre- 
sented by their slaves, he had to face the alternative of the 
loss of these substantial citizens by migration with their 
slaves to the Spanish side of the river. And, in order to 
pacify these petitioners, St. Clair gave it as his opinion that 
the prohibition of slavery in the Ordinance was not retro- 
active, and hence did not affect the rights of the French 
masters in their previously acquired slave property. As 
this view accorded with the "compact" contained in the 
Virginia deed of cession, it was sanctioned by the old Con- 
gress, and was later upheld by the new Federal Government; 
and this construction of the Ordinance of 1787 continued to 
prevail in Illinois until 1845, when the State Supreme Court 
decreed that the prohibition was absolute, and that, con- 
sequently, slavery in any form had never had any legal 
sanction in Illinois since 1787. ^^ 

It does not appear that Mr. Lemen took any active 
measures against this construction of the anti-slavery 
ordinance at the time. He was, indeed, himself a petitioner, 
with other American settlers on the "Congress lands" in 
Illinois, for the recognition of their claims, which were 



Introduction 13 



menaced by the general prohibition of settlement then in 
effect.^- Conditions in every respect were so insecure prior 
to the organization of St. Clair county in 1790, that it was 
hardly to be expected that any vigorous measure could be 
taken against previously existing slavery in the colony, 
especially as the Americans were then living in station forts 
for protection against the hostile Indians. Moreover, 
JeflFerson was not in the country in 1787, and hence there 
was no opportunity for co-operation with him at this time. 
Mr. Lemen was, however, improving the opportunity 
"to try to lead and direct the new settlers in the best way"; 
for we find him, although not as yet himself a "professor" 
of religion, engaged in promoting the religious observance of 
the Sabbath on the part of the "godfearing" element in the 
station fort where, with his father-in-law, he resided (Fort 
Piggott). In 1789 Jefferson returned from France to be- 
come Secretary of State in President Washington's cabinet, 
under the new Federal Government. He had not forgotten 
his friend Lemen, as Dr. Peck assures us that "he lost no 
time in sending him a message of love and confidence by 
a friend who was then coming to the West." 

St. Clair's construction of the prohibition of slavery 
unfortunately served to weaken even its preventive force 
and emboldened the pro-slavery advocates to seek per- 
sistently for the repeal, or, at least, the "suspension" of 
the obnoxious Sixth Article. A second efi^ort was made 
under his administration in 1796, when a memorial, headed 
by Gen. John Edgar, was sent to Congress praying for the 
suspension of the Article. The committee of reference, of 
which the Hon. Joshua Coit of Connecticut was chairman, 
reported adversely upon this memorial. May 12, 1796.^^ 
It is not possible to state positively Lemen's influence, if 
any, in the defeat of this appeal of the leading citizens of the 
old French villages. But, as it was in this same year that 
the first Protestant church in the bounds of Illinois was 
organized in his house, and, as we are informed that he en- 
deavored to persuade the constituent members of the New 
Design church to oppose slavery, we may suppose that he 
was already taking an active part in opposition to the 
further encroachments of slavery, especially in his own 
community. 

The effort to remove the prohibition was renewed under 
Gov. Wm. Henry Harrison, during the connection of the 



14 The Jefferson-Lemen Compact 

Illinois settlements with the Indiana Territory, from 1800 
to 1809. Five separate attempts were made during these 
years, which coincide with the term of President Jefferson, 
who had removed St. Clair to make room for Gen. Harrison. 
Harrison, however, yielded to the pressure of the pro- 
slavery element in the Territory to use his power and in- 
fluence for their side of the question. Although their 
proposals were thrice favorably reported from committee, the 
question never came to a vote in Congress. The first 
attempt during the Indiana period was that of a pro-slavery 
convention, called at the instigation of the Illinois contingent, 
which met at Vincennes, in 1803, under the chairmanship 
of Gov. Harrison. Their memorial to Congress, requesting 
merely a temporary suspension of the prohibition, was 
adversely reported from committee in view of the evident 
prosperity of Ohio under the same restriction, and because 
"the committee deem it highly dangerous and inexpedient 
to impair a provision wisely calculated to promote the hap- 
piness and prosperity of the Northwestern country, and to 
give strength and security to that extensive frontier." 
Referring to this attempt of "the extreme southern slave 
advocates . . . for the introduction of slavery," Mr. 
Lemen writes, under date of May 3, 1803, that "steps must 
soon be taken to prevent that curse from being fastened 
on our people." The same memorial was again introduced 
in Congress in February, 1804, with the provisos of a ten-year 
limit to the suspension and the introduction of native born 
slaves only, which, of course, would mean those of the 
border-state breeders. Even this modified proposal, al- 
though approved in committee, failed to move Congress to 
action. Harrison and his supporters continued nevertheless 
to press the matter, and he even urged Judge Lemen, in a 
personal interview, to lend his influence to the movement 
for the introduction of slavery. To this suggestion Lemen 
replied that "the evil attempt would encounter his most ac- 
tive opposition, in every possible and honorable manner that 
his mind could suggest or his means accomplish,"^'* 

It was about this time that the Governor and judges 
took matters in their own hands and introduced a form of 
indentured service, which, although technically within the 
prohibition of involuntary servitude, amounted practically 
to actual slavery. Soon after, in order to give this in- 
stitution a more secure legal sanction, by legislative en- 



Introduction 



15 



actment, the second grade of territorial government was 
hastily and high-handedly forced upon the people for this 
purpose. It was probably in view of these measures that 
Mr. Lemen recorded his belief that President Jefferson 
"will find means to overreach the evil attempts of the 
pro-slavery party." Early in the year 1806 the Vincennes 
memorial was introduced into Congress for the third time 
and again favorably reported from committee, but to no 
avail. It was about this time, as we learn from his diary, 
that Mr. Lemen "sent a messenger to Indiana to ask the 
churches and people there to get up and sign a counter 
petition, to uphold freedom in the Territory," circulating a 
similar petition in Illinois himself.^^ 

A fourth attempt to bring the proposal before Congress 
was made in January, 1807, in a formal communication 
from the Governor and Territorial Legislature. The pro- 
posal was a third time favorably reported by the committee 
of reference, but still without action by the House. Finally, 
in November of the same year. President Jefferson trans- 
mitted to Congress similar communications from the Indiana 
government. This time the committee reported that 
"the citizens of Clark county [in which was located the 
first Baptist church organized in Indiana], in their remon- 
strance, express their sense of the impropriety of the meas- 
ure"; and that they also requested Congress not to act 
upon the subject until the people had an opportunity to 
formulate a State Constitution. i*' Commenting upon the 
whole proceedings, Dr. Peck quotes Gov. Harrison to the 
effect that, though he and Lemen were firm friends, the latter 
"had set his iron will against slavery, and indirectly made 
his influence felt so strongly at Washington and before 
Congress, that all the efforts to suspend the anti-slavery 
clause in the Ordinance of 1787 failed." ^^ Peck adds that 
President Jefferson "quietly directed his leading confidential 
friends in Congress steadily to defeat Gen. Harrison's peti- 
tions for the repeal." ^^ 

It was about this time, September 10, 1807, that President 
Jefferson thus expressed his estimate of James Lemen's 
services, in his letter to Robert Lemen: "His record in 
the new country has fully justified my course in inducing 
him to settle there with the view of properly shaping events 
in the best interest of the people." ^^ It was during this 
period of the Indiana agitation for the introduction of 



1 6 The Jefferson-Lemen Compact 

slavery, as we learn from an entry in his diary dated Sep- 
tember 10, 1806, that Mr. Lemen received a call from an 
agent of Aaron Burr to solicit his aid and smypathy in Burr's 
scheme for a southwestern empire, with Illinois as a Province, 
and an offer to make him governor. "But I denounced the 
conspiracy as high treason," he says, "and gave him a few 
hours to leave the Territory on pain of arrest." ^^ It should 
be noted that at this date he was not himself a magistrate, 
which, perhaps, accounts for his apparent leniency towards 
what he regarded as a treasonable proposal. 

The year 1809, the date of the separation of Illinois 
from the Indiana Territory, marks a crisis in the Lemen 
anti-slavery campaign in Illinois.^'' The agitation under 
the Indiana government for the further recognition of slavery 
in the Territory was mainly instigated by the Illinois slave- 
holders and their sympathizers among the American settlers 
from the slave states. The people of Indiana proper, except 
those of the old French inhabitants of Vincennes, who were 
possessed of slaves, were either indifferent or hostile towards 
slavery. Its partisans in the Illinois counties of the Ter- 
ritory, in the hope of promoting their object thereby, now 
sought division of the Indiana Territory and the erection of a 
separate government for Illinois at Kaskaskia. This 
movement aroused a bitter political struggle in the Illinois 
settlements, one result of which was the murder of young 
Rice Jones in the streets of Kaskaskia. The division was 
advocated on the ground of convenience and opposed on the 
score of expense. The divisionists, however, seem to have 
been animated mainly by the desire to secure the introduc- 
tion of slavery as soon as statehood could be attained for 
their section. The division was achieved in 1809, and with 
it the prompt adoption of the system of indentured service 
already in vogue under the Indiana government. And from 
that time forth the fight was on between the free-state and 
slave-state parties in the new Territory. Throughout the 
independent territorial history of Illinois, slavery was 
sanctioned partly by law and still further by custom. Gov. 
Ninian Edwards, whose religious affiliations were with the 
Baptists, not only sanctioned slavery, but, as is well known, 
was himself the owner of slaves during the territorial period. 

It was in view of this evident determination to make 
of Illinois Territory a slave state, that James Lemen, with 
Jefferson's approval, took the radical step of organizing 



Introduction 17 



a distinctively anti-slavery church as a means of promoting 
the free-state cause. -^ From the first, indeed, he had sought 
to promote the cause of temperance and of anti-slavery 
in and through the church. He tells us in his diary, in fact, 
that he "hoped to employ the churches as a means of op- 
position to the institution of slavery." -^ He was reared 
in the Presbyterian faith, his stepfather being a minister 
of that persuasion; but at twenty years of age he embraced 
Baptist principles, apparently under the influence of a 
Baptist minister in Virginia, whose practice it was to bar 
from membership all who upheld the institution of slavery. 
He thus identified himself with the struggles for civil, re- 
ligious, and industrial liberty, all of which were then actively 
going on in his own state. 

The name of "New Design," which became attached 
to the settlement which he established on the upland prairies 
beyond the bluff's of the "American Bottom," is said to have 
originated from a quaint remark of his that he "had a 
'new design' to locate a settlement south of Bellefontaine" 
near the present town of Waterloo.-- The name "New 
Design," however, became significant of his anti-slavery 
mission; and when, after ten years of pioneer struggles, he 
organized The Baptist Church of Christ at New Design, in 
1796, he soon afterwards induced that body — the first 
Protestant church in the bounds of the present State — to 
adopt what were known as "Tarrant's Rules Against 
Slavery." The author of these rules, the Rev. James 
Tarrant, of Virginia, later of Kentucky, one of the "eman- 
cipating preachers," eventually organized the fraternity of 
anti-slavery Baptist churches in Kentucky, who called 
themselves "Friends to Humanity." 

From 1796 to 1809 Judge Lemen was active in the pro- 
motion of Baptist churches and a Baptist Association. He 
labored to induce all these organizations to adopt his anti- 
slavery principles, and in this he was largely successful; but, 
with the increase of immigrant Baptists from the slave 
states, it became increasingly difficult to maintain these 
principles in their integrity. And when, in the course of 
the campaign for the division of the Territory in 1808, it 
became apparent that the lines between the free-state and 
the slave-state forces were being decisively drawn, Lemen 
prepared to take a more radical stand in the struggle. With 
this design in view he asked and obtained the formal sanction 



1 8 The Jefferson-Lemen Compact 

of his church as a Hcensed preacher. In the course of the 
same year, 1808, he is said to have received a confidential 
message from Jefferson "suggesting a division of the churches 
on the question of slavery, and the organization of a church 
on a strictly anti-slavery basis, for the purpose of heading 
a movement to make Illinois a free state." -^ According 
to another, and more probable, version of this story, when 
Jefferson learned, through a mutual friend (Mr. S. H. Biggs), 
of Lemen's determination to force the issue in the church 
to the point of division, if necessary, he sent him a message 
of approval of his proposed course and accompanied it with 
a contribution of $20 for the contemplated anti-slavery 
church. 

The division of the Territory was effected early in the year 
1809, and in the summer of that year, after vainly trying to 
hold all the churches to their avowed anti-slavery principles, 
Elder Lemen, in a sermon at Richland Creek Baptist church, 
threw down the gauntlet to his pro-slavery brethren and 
declared that he could no longer maintain church fellowship 
with them. His action caused a division in the church, 
which was carried into the Association at its ensuing meeting, 
in October, 1809, and resulted in the disruption of that body 
into three parties on the slavery question — the conserva- 
tives, the liberals, and the radicals. The latter element, 
headed by "the Lemen party," as it now came to be called, 
held to the principles of The Friends to Humanity, and 
proposed to organize a branch of that order of Baptists. 
When it came to the test, however, the new church was 
reduced to a constituent membership consisting of some 
seven or eight members of the Lemen family. Such was the 
beginning of what is now the oldest surviving Baptist church 
in the State, which then took the name of "The Baptized 
Church of Christ, Friends to Humanity, on Cantine (Quen- 
tin) Creek." It is located in the neighborhood of the old 
Cahokia mound. Its building, when it came to have one, 
was called "Bethel Meeting House," and in time the church 
itself became known as "Bethel Baptist Church." 

The distinctive basis of this church is proclaimed in 
its simple constitution, to which every member was re- 
quired to subscribe: "Denying union and communion with 
all persons holding the doctrine of perpetual, involuntary, 
hereditary slavery." This church began its career as "a 
family church," in the literal sense of the word; but it pros- 



Introduction 19 



pered nevertheless, until it became a numerically strong and 
vigorous organization which has had an active and honorable 
career of a hundred years' duration. Churches of the same 
name and principles multiplied and maintained their un- 
compromising but discriminating opposition to slavery so 
long as slavery remained a local issue; after which time they 
were gradually absorbed into the general body of ordinary 
Baptist churches. 

During the period of the Illinois Territory, 1809 to 1818, 
Elder Lemen kept up a most energetic campaign of opposition 
to slavery, by preaching and rigorous church discipline in the 
application of the rules against slavery. He himself was 
regularly ordained soon after the organization of his anti- 
slavery church. His sons, James and Joseph, and his 
brother-in-law, Benjamin Ogle, were equally active in the 
ministry during this period, and, before its close, they had 
two churches firmly established in Illinois, with others of the 
same order in Missouri. 

"The church, properly speaking, never entered politics," 
Dr. Peck informs us, "but presently, when it became strong, 
the members all formed what they called the 'Illinois Anti- 
Slavery League,' and it was this body that conducted the 
anti-slavery contest." ^^ The contest culminated in the 
campaign for statehood in 1818. 

At the beginning of that year the Territorial Legislature 
petitioned Congress for an Enabling Act, which was presented 
by the Illinois Delegate, Hon. Nathaniel Pope. As chair- 
man of the committe to which this petition was referred, 
he drew up a bill for such an act early in the year. In 
the course of its progress through the House, he presented 
an amendment to his own bill, which provided for the 
extension of the northern boundary of the new state. Ac- 
cording to the provisions of the Ordinance of 1787, the line 
would have been drawn through the southern border of 
Lake Michigan. Pope's amendment proposed to extend 
it so as to include some sixty miles of frontage on Lake 
Michigan, thereby adding fourteen counties, naturally 
tributary to the lake region, to counterbalance the southern 
portion of the State, which was connected by the river system 
with the southern slave states. Gov. Thomas Ford states 
explicitly that Pope made this change "upon his own re- 
sponsibility, ... no one at that time having suggested 
or requested it." This statement is directly contradicted 



The Jefferson-Lemen Compact 



in Dr. Peck's sketch of James Lemen, Sr., written in 1857. 
He therein states that this extension was first suggested by 
Judge Lemen, who had a government surveyor make a plat 
of the proposed extension, with the advantages to the anti- 
slavery cause to be gained thereby noted on the document, 
which he gave to Pope with the request to have it embodied 
in the Enabling Act.^* This statement was repeated and 
amplified by Mr. Joseph B. Lemen in an article in The 
Chicago Tribune.^^ It is a well-known fact that the vote of 
these fourteen northern counties secured the State to the 
anti-slavery party in 1856; but as this section of the State 
was not settled until long after its admission into the Union, 
the measure, whatever its origin, had no effect upon the 
Constitutional Convention. However, John Messinger, of 
New Design, who surveyed the Military Tract and, later, 
also the northern boundary line, may very well have made 
such a plat, either on his own motion or at the suggestion 
of the zealous anti-slavery leader, with whom he was well 
acquainted. As Messinger was later associated with Peck 
in the Rock Spring Seminary, and in the publication of a 
sectional map of Illinois, it would seem that Peck was in a 
position to know the facts as well as Ford. 

In the campaign for the election of delegates to the 
Constitutional Convention, slavery was the only question 
seriously agitated. The Lemen churches and their sympa- 
thizers were so well organized and so determined in purpose 
that they made a very energetic and effective campaign for 
delegates. Their organization for political purposes, as 
Peck informs us, "always kept one of its members and several 
of its friends in the Territorial Legislature; and five years 
before the constitutional election in 1818, it had fifty 
resident agents — men of like sympathies — quietly at work 
in the several settlements; and the masterly manner in 
which they did their duty was shown by a poll which they 
made of the voters some few weeks before the election, 
which, on their side, varied only a few votes from the official 
count after the election." ^3 

It is difficult to determine from the meager records of 
the proceedings, even including the Journal of the Conven- 
tion recently published, just what the complexion of the 
body was on the slavery question. Mr. W. Kitchell, a 
descendant of one of the delegates, states that there were 
twelve delegates that favored the recognition of slavery by 



Introduction 



a. specific article in the Constitution, and twenty-one that 
opposed such action. Gov. Coles, who was present as a 
visitor and learned the sentiments of the prominent members, 
says that many, but not a majority of the Convention, were 
in favor of making Illinois a slave state. ^^ During the 
session of the Convention an address to The Friends of 
Freedom was published by a company of thirteen leading 
men, including James Lemen, Sr., to the effect that a deter- 
mined effort was to be made in the Convention to give 
sanction to slavery, and urging concerted action "to defeat 
the plans of those who wish either a temporary or an un- 
limited slavery." ^^ A majority of the signers of this address 
were Lemen's Baptist friends, and its phraseology points 
to him as its author. 

James Lemen, Jr., was a delegate from St. Clair county 
and a member of the committee which drafted the Constitu- 
tion. In the original draft of that instrument, slavery was 
prohibited in the identical terms of the Ordinance of 1787, 
as we learn from the recently published journal of the Con- 
vention. In the final draft this was changed to read: 
"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall hereafter 
be introduced," and the existing system of indentured service 
was also incorporated. These changes were the result of 
compromise, and Lemen consistently voted against them. 
He was nevertheless one of the committee of three appointed 
to revise and engross the completed instrument. 

The result was a substantial victory for the Free-State 
Party; and had the Convention actually overridden the 
prohibition contained in the original Territorial Ordinance, 
as it was then interpreted, it is evident, from the tone of the 
address to The Friends of Freedom, that the Lemen circle 
would have made a determined effort to defeat the measure 
in Congress.2^ 

Dr. Peck, who, like Gov. Coles, was a visitor to the Conven- 
tion, and who had every opportunity to know all the facts, in 
summing up the evidence in regard to the matter, declares it 
to be "conclusive that Mr. Lemen created and organized 
the forces which confirmed Illinois, if not the Northwest 
Territory, to freedom." Speaking of the current impression 
that the question of slavery was not much agitated in 
Illinois prior to the Constitutional Convention, Gov, Coles 
says: "On the contrary, at a very early period of the settle- 
ment of Illinois, the question was warmly agitated by 



The Jefferson-Lemen Compact 



zealous advocates and opponents of slavery," and that, 
although during the period of the independent Illinois 
Territory the agitation was lulled, it was not extinguished, 
"as was seen [from] its mingling itself so actively both in 
the election and the conduct of the members of the Con- 
vention, in 1818." 26 

Senator Douglas, in a letter to James Lemen, Jr., is 
credited with full knowledge of the " JefFerson-Lemen Anti- 
Slavery Compact" and a high estimate of its significance in 
the history of the slavery contest in Illinois and the North- 
west Territory. "This matter assumes a phase of personal 
interest with me," he says, "and I find myself, politically, 
in the good company of Jefferson and your father. With 
them everything turned on whether the people of the Ter- 
ritory wanted slavery or not, . . . and that appears to 
me to be the correct doctrine." ^s Lincoln, too, in a letter 
to the younger James Lemen, is quoted as having a personal 
knowledge of the facts and great respect for the senior Lemen 
in the conflict for a free state in Illinois. "Both your father 
and Lovejoy," he remarks, "were pioneer leaders in the cause 
of freedom, and it has always been difficult for me to see 
why your father, who was a resolute, uncompromising, and 
aggressive leader, who boldly proclaimed his purpose to 
make both the Territory and the State free, never aroused 
nor encountered any of that mob violence which, both in 
St. Louis and in Alton, confronted and pursued Lovejoy." ^9 
Of the latter he says: "His letters, among your old family 
notes, were of more interest to me than even those of Thomas 
Jefferson to your father." 

Jefferson's connection with Lemen's anti-slavery mission 
in Illinois was never made public, apparently, until the facts 
were published by Mr. Joseph B. Lemen, of the third genera- 
tion, in the later years of his life, in connection with the 
centennary anniversaries of the events involved. However, 
the "compact" was a matter of family tradition, based upon 
a collection of letters and notes handed down from father to 
son. Jefferson's reasons for keeping the matter secret, as 
Dr. Peck explains, were, first, to prevent giving the impres- 
sion that he was seeking his own interests in the territories, 
and, second, to avoid arousing the opposition of his southern 
friends who desired the extension of slavery. Lemen, on 
the other hand, did not wish to have it thought that his 
actions were controlled by political considerations, or 



Introduction 23 



subject to the will of another. Moreover, when he learned 
that Jefferson was regarded as "an unbeliever," he is said 
to have wept bitterly lest it should be thought that, in his 
work for the church and humanity, he had been influenced 
by an "infidel"; and, sometime before his death, he exacted 
a promise of his sons and the few friends who were acquainted 
with the nature of his compact with Jefferson that they 
would not make it known while he lived.^" Under the in- 
fluence of this feeling on the part of their father, the family 
kept the facts to themselves and a few confidential friends 
until after the lapse of a century, when the time came to 
commemorate the achievements of their ancestor. 

How much of the current tradition is fact and how much 
fiction is hard to determine, as so little of the original doc- 
umentary material is now available. The collection of 
materials herewith presented consists of what purport to 
be authentic copies of the original documents in question. 
They are put in this form in the belief that their significance 
warrants it, and in the hope that their publication may elicit 
further light on the subject. These materials consist of 
three sorts, viz.; a transcript of the Diary of James Lemen, 
Sr., a manuscript History of the confidential relations of 
Lemen and Jefferson, prepared by Rev. John M. Peck, and 
a series of letters from various public men to Rev. James 
Lemen, Jr. The Diary and manuscript "History" were 
located by the compiler of this collection among the papers 
of the late Dr. Edward B. Lemen, of Alton, Illinois. These 
documents are now in the possession of his son-in-law, Mr. 
Wykoff, who keeps them in his bank vault. The collection 
of letters was published at various times by Mr. Joseph B. 
Lemen, of Collinsville, Illinois, in The Belleville Advocate, 
of Belleville, Illinois. The Diary is a transcript of the 
original, attested by Rev. James Lemen, Jr. The "History" 
is a brief sketch, in two chapters, prepared from the original 
documents by Dr. Peck while he was pastor of the Bethel 
Church, in June, 1851, and written at his dictation by the 
hand of an assistant, as the document itself expressly states. 
Mr. Joseph Lemen, who is responsible for the letters, is the 
son of Rev. James Lemen, Jr., and one of the editors of the 
Lemen Family History. The editor of The Belleville Ad- 
vocate states that Mr. Lemen has contributed to various 
metropolitan newspapers in the political campaigns of his 
party, from those of Lincoln to those of McKinley.^^ He 



24 The Jefferson-Lemen Compact 

also contributed extended sketches of the Baptist churches 
of St. Clair county for one of the early histories of that 
county. He took an active part in promoting the movement 
to commemorate his grandfather, James Lemen, Sr., in 
connection with the centennary anniversaries of the churches 
founded at New Design and Quentin Creek (Bethel). 

The originals of these materials are said to have com- 
posed part of a collection of letters and documents known 
as the "Lemen Family Notes," which has aroused consider- 
able interest and inquiry among historians throughout the 
country. The history of this collection is somewhat un- 
certain. It was begun by James Lemen, Sr., whose diary, 
containing his "Yorktown Notes" and other memoranda, is 
perhaps its most interesting survival. While residing in the 
station fort on the Mississippi Bottom during the Indian 
troubles of his early years in the Illinois country, he made a 
rude walnut chest in which to keep his books and papers. 
This chest, which long continued to be used as the depository 
of the family papers, is still preserved, in the Illinois Baptist 
Historical Collection, at the Carnegie Library, Alton, Illinois. 
It is said that Abraham Lincoln once borrowed it from Rev. 
James Lemen, Jr., for the sake of its historical associations, 
and used it for a week as a receptacle for his own papers. 
Upon the death of the elder Lemen the family notes and 
papers passed to James, Jr., who added to it many letters 
from public men of his wide circle of acquaintance. 

As the older portions of the collection were being worn 
and lost, by loaning them to relatives and friends, copies 
were made of all the more important documents, and the re- 
maining originals were then placed in the hands of Dr. 
J. M. Peck, who was at the time pastor of the Bethel Church, 
to be deposited in the private safe of a friend of his in St. 
Louis. As the slavery question was then (1851) at white 
heat, it is not surprising that Dr. Peck advised the family 
to carefully preserve all the facts and documents relating 
to their father's anti-slavery efforts "until some future time," 
lest their premature publication should disturb the peace of 
his church. As late as 1857 he writes of "that dangerous 
element in many of the old letters bearing on the anti-slavery 
contest of 1818," and adds, "With some of those interested 
in that contest, in fifty years from this time, the publication 
of these letters would create trouble between the descendants 
of many of our old pioneer families." ^ 



Introduction 



25 



A man by the name of J. M. Smith is suggested by Dr. 
Peck as the custodian of the originals. When this gentleman 
died, the documents in his care are supposed to have been 
either lost or appropriated by parties unknown to the Lemen 
family. Mr. Joseph B. Lemen relates that a certain party 
at one time represented to the family that he had located the 
papers and offered, for a suitable consideration, to recover 
them. This proved to be merely a scheme to obtain money 
under false pretenses.^ Various other accounts are current 
of the disposition of the original papers; but as yet none of 
them have been located. 

The transcripts of the collection, made by James Lemen, 
Jr., came into the hands of his son, Joseph Bowler Lemen, 
who is responsible for the publication of various portions of 
the story, including some of the letters entire. Even these 
copies, however, are not accessible at the present time, ex- 
cept that of the Lemen Diary, as located by the present 
writer. Joseph Lemen's account of the fate of the elusive 
documents is given in full at the end of this publication. He 
there states that every paper of any value was copied and 
preserved, but even these copies w^ere dissipated to a large 
extent. He also claims that all the facts contained in these 
documents have been published in one form or another, 
"except a very few, including Rev. James Lemen's interviews 
with Lincoln, as written up by Mr. Lemen on ten pages of 
legal cap paper." This Joseph B. Lemen is now far ad- 
vanced in years, has long been a recluse, and has the reputa- 
tion of being "peculiar." In a personal interview with him, 
the present writer could elicit no further facts regarding 
the whereabouts of the "Lemen Family Notes." Never- 
theless, the discovery of the copy of the Lemen Diary and 
the manuscript of Dr. Peck's "History" gives encourage- 
ment to hope for further discoveries, w^hich should be re- 
ported to the Chicago Historical Society. 



DOCUMENTS 
1. DIARY OF REV. JAMES LEMEN, SR. 

Ridge Prairie, 111. June 4, 1867. 

The within notes are a true copy of the notes kept by 
the Rev. James Lemen, Sr., when in the siege at Yorktown. 
The original notes were fading out. 

By his son, Rev. James Lemen, Jr. 



Near Yorktown, Va. Sep. 26, 1781. 
My enlistment of two years expired some time ago, but 
I joined my regiment to-day and will serve in this siege. 

Quarters, near Yorktown, Sept. 27, 1781. 
I was on one of the French ships to-day with my captain. 
There is a great fleet of them to help us, it is said, if we fight 
soon. 

Sept. 30, 1781, Near Yorktown. 
Our regiment has orders to move forward this morning, 
and the main army is moving. 

Near Yorktown. Oct. 3, 1781. 
I was detailed with four other soldiers to return an 
insane British soldier who had come into our lines, as we 
don't want such prisoners. 

Near Yorktown. Oct. 4, 1781. 
I carried a message from my Colonel to Gen. Washington 
to-day. He recognized me and talked very kindly and said 
the war would soon be over, he thought. I knew Washington 
before the war commenced. 

26 



Documents 



27 



Near Yorktown. Oct. 4, 1781. 
I saw Washington and La Fayette looking at a French 
soldier and an American soldier wrestling, and the American 
threw the Frenchman so hard he limped off, and La Fayette 
said that was the way Washington must do to Cornwallis. 

Near Yorktown. Oct. 5, 1781. 
Brother Robert is sick to-day, but w^as on duty. There 
was considerable firing to-day. There will be a great fight 
soon. 

Near Yorktown. Oct. 15, 1781. 
I was in the assault which La Fayette led yesterday 
evening against the British redoubt, which we captured. 
Our loss was nine killed and thirt3^-four wounded. 

Near Yorktown. Oct. 15, 1781. 
Firing was very heavy along our lines on Oct. 9th and 
10th. and with great effect, but this redoubt and another 
was in our way and we Americans under La Fayette cap- 
tured one easily, but the French soldiers who captured the 
other suffered heavily. They were also led by a Frenchman. 

Yorktown. Oct. 19, 1781. 
Our victory is great and complete. I saw the surrender 
to-day. Our officers think this will probably end the war. 



Ridge Prairie, 111. June 4, 1867. 
I have examined the within notes and find them to be 
correct copies of notes kept by Rev. James Lemen, Sr., 
which were fading out. He originally kept his confidential 
notes, as to his agreement with Thomas Jefferson, in a 
private book, but as this is intended for publication at some 
future time, they are all copied together. 

By his son, Rev. James Lemen, Jr. 



Harper's Ferry, Va. Dec. 11, 1782. 
^Thomas Jefferson had me to visit him again a short 
time ago, as he wanted me to go to the Illinois country in 
the North West, after a year or two, in order to try to lead 



2 8 The Jefferson-Lemen Compact 

and direct the new settlers in the best way and also to oppose 
the introduction of slavery in that country at a later day, 
as I am known as an opponent of that evil, and he says he 
will give me some help. It is all because of his great kindness 
and affection for me, for which I am very grateful, but I 
have not yet fully decided to do so, but have agreed to con- 
sider the case. 

Dec. 20, 1782. 

During the war, I served a two years' enlistment under 
Washington. I do not believe in war except to defend one's 
country and home and in this case I was willing to serve as 
faithfully as I could. After my enlistment expired I served 
again in the army in my regiment under Washington, during 
the siege of Yorktown, but did not again enlist, as the officers 
thought the war would soon end. 

May 2, 1784. 

^I saw Jefferson at Annapolis, Maryland, to-day and had 
a very pleasant visit with him. I have consented to go to 
Illinois on his mission and he intends helping me some, but 
I did not ask nor wish it. We had a full agreement and 
understanding as to all terms and duties. The agreement 
is strictly private between us, but all his purposes are per- 
fectly honorable and praiseworthy. 

Dec. 28, 1785. 
Jefferson's confidential agent gave me one hundred dol- 
lars of his funds to use for my family, if need be, and if not 
to go to good causes, and I will go to Illinois on his mission 
next Spring and take my wife and children. 

Sept. 4, 1786. 

In the past summer, with my wife and children I arrived 
at Kaskaskia, Illinois, and we are now living in the Bottom 
settlement. On the Ohio river my boat partly turned over 
and we lost a part of our goods and our son Robert came near 
drowning. 

May 10, 1787. 

I am very well impressed with this new country, but we 
are still living in the Bottom, as the Indians are unsafe. We 
prefer living on the high lands and we shall get us a place 
there soon. People are coming into this new country in 
increasing numbers. 



Documents 29 



New Design, III. Feb. 26, 1794. 
My wife and I were baptized with several others to-day 
in Fountain Creek by Rev. Josiah Dodge. The ice had to be 
cut and removed first. 

New Design, May 28, 1796. 
Yesterday and to-day, my neighbors at my invitation, 
gathered at my home and were constituted into a Baptist 
church, by Rev. David Badgley and Joseph Chance. 

New Design, Jan. 4, 1797. 
We settled here some time ago and are well pleased with 
our place. It is more healthy than the Bottom country. A 
fine sugar grove is near us and a large lake with fine fish, 
and soil good, but the Indians are not yet to be trusted. We 
have been here now a number of years and have quite a 
farm in cultivation and fairly good improvements. 

New Design, Jan. 6, 1798. 

I have just returned with six of my neighbors from 
a hunt and land inspection upon what is called Richland 
country and creek. We had made our camp near that creek 
before. On the first Sunday morning in December held 
religious services and on Monday went out to see the land. 
We found fine prairie lands some miles north, south and east 
and some timber lands along the water streams mostly. 
Game is plentiful and we killed several deer and turkeys. 
It is a fine country. 

New Design, May 3, 1803. 

As Thomas Jefferson predicted they would do, the 
extreme southern slave advocates are making their influence 
felt in the new territory for the introduction of slavery and 
they are pressing Gov. William Henry Harrison to use his 
power and influence for that end. Steps must soon be taken 
to prevent that curse from being fastened on our people. 

New Design, May 4, 1805. 
At our last meeting, as I expected he would do, Gov. 
Harrison asked and insisted that I should cast my influence 
for the introduction of slavery here, but I not only denied 
the request, but I informed him that the evil attempt would 
encounter my most active opposition in every possible and 
honorable manner that my mind could suggest or my means 
accomplish. 



30 The Jefferson-Lemen Compact 

New Design, May 10, 1805. 
Knowing President Jefferson's hostility against the 
introduction of slavery here and the mission he sent me on to 
oppose it, I do not believe the pro-slavery petitions with 
which Gov. Harrison and his council are pressing Congress 
for slavery here can prevail while he is President, as he is 
very popular with Congress and will find means to over- 
reach the evil attempt of the pro-slavery power. 

Jan. 20th 1806. 
^^As Gov. William Henry Harrison and his legislative 
council have had their petitions before Congress at several 
sessions asking for slavery here, I sent a messenger to 
Indiana to ask the churches and people there to get up and 
sign a counter petition to Congress to uphold freedom in the 
territory and I have circulated one here and we will send it on 
to that body at next session or as soon as the work is done. 

New Design. Sept. 10, 1806. 

^^A confidential agent of Aaron Burr called yesterday 
to ask my aid and sympathy in Burr's scheme for a South- 
western Empire with Illinois as a province and an offer to 
make me governor. But I denounced the conspiracy as 
high treason and gave him a few hours to leave the territory 
on pain of arrest. 

New Design. Jan 10, 1809 [1810]. 

^^I received Jefferson's confidential message on Oct. 
10, 1808, suggesting a division of the churches on the ques- 
tion of slavery and the organization of a church on a strictly 
anti-slavery basis, for the purpose of heading a movement 
to finally make Illinois a free State, and after first trying in 
vain for some months to bring all the churches over to such 
a basis, I acted on Jefferson's plan and Dec. 10, 1809, the 
anti-slavery element formed a Baptist church at Cantine 
creek, on an anti-slavery basis. 

New Design. Mar. 3, 1819. 
I was reared in the Presbyterian faith, but at 20 years of 
age I embraced Baptist principles and after settlement in 
Illinois I was baptized into that faith and finally became 
a minister of the gospel of that church, but some years be- 
fore I was licensed to preach, I was active in collecting and 



Documents 31 



inducing communities to organize churches, as I thought 
that the most certain plan to control and improve the new 
settlements, and I also hoped to employ the churches as a 
means of opposition to the institution of slavery, but this 
only became possible when we organized a leading church 
on a strictly anti-slavery basis, an event which finally was 
marked with great success, as JeflFerson suggested it would 
be. 

New Design. Jan 10, 1820. 
My six sons all are naturally industrious and they all 
enjoy the sports. Robert and Josiah excel in fishing, Moses 
in hunting, William in boating and swimming and James and 
Joseph in running and jumping. Either one of them can 
jump over a line held at his own height, a little over six feet. 

New Design. Jan. 12, 1820. 

A full account of my Indian fights will be found among 
my papers. 

New Design. Dec. 10, 1820. 

Looking back at this time, 1820, to 1809, when we or- 
ganized the Canteen creek Baptist Church on a strictly 
anti-slavery basis as Jefferson had suggested as a [center] 
from which the anti-slavery movement to finally save the 
State to freedom could be directed, it is now clear that the 
move was a wise one as there is no doubt but that it more than 
anything else was what made Illinois a free State. 

New Design, 111. Jan. 4, 1821. 
Among my papers my family will find a full and connected 
statement as to all the churches I have caused to be formed 
since my settlement in Illinois. 



There were many of our family notes which were faded 
out and Rev. J. M. Peck retained some when he made 
father's history and many were misplaced by other friends, 
but we have had all copied [that] are now in our possession 
which are of interest. Rev. James Lemen, Jr., 

(Son of Rev. James Lemen, Sr.). 

Ridge Prairie, 111. June 4, 1867. 
My father's account of his Indian fights and statement 
of all the churches he caused to be founded in Illinois, above 



The Jefferson-Lemen Compact 



mentioned, were loaned to Rev. John M. Peck a short time 
before his death and have not been returned, but the in- 
formation contained has already been published except a 
few confidential facts as to his relations with Jefferson in the 
formation of the Canteen Creek Baptist Ch., now the 
Bethel Baptist Church. Rev. James Lemen, Jr. 

(Son of James Lemen, Sr.) 



II. PECK'S HISTORY OF THE JEFFERSON-LEMEN 
COMPACT 

Rock Spring, III, June 4, 185L 

The history of the confidential relation of Rev. James 

Lemen, Senior, and Thomas Jefferson, and Lemen's mission 

under him, which I have prepared for his son. Rev. James 

Lemen, Junior, at his request from the family notes and diaries. 

J. M. Peck, 
Per A. M. W. 

Chapter I. 

The leading purpose of Thomas Jefferson in selecting 
James Lemen, of Virginia, afterwards James Lemen, Senior, 
to go to Illinois as his agent, was no doubt prompted by 
his great affection for Mr. Lemen and his impression that 
a young man of such aptitude as a natural leader would soon 
impress himself on the community, and as the advantages in 
the territory were soon to be great, Jefferson was desirous 
to send him out, and with the help of a few friends he pro- 
vided a small fund to give him, and also his friend who was 
going to Indiana on a like mission, to be used by their 
families if need be, and if not to go to good causes. There 
was also another motive with Jefferson; he looked forward 
to a great pro-slavery contest to finally try to make Illinois 
and Indiana slave states, and as Mr. Lemen was a natural 
born anti-slavery leader and had proved himself such in 
Virginia by inducing scores of masters to free their slaves 
through his prevailing kindness of manner and Christian 
arguments, he was just Jefferson's ideal of a man who could 
safely be trusted with his anti-slavery mission in Illinois, 
and this was an important factor in his appointment. 

The last meeting between Mr. Lemen and Jefferson was 
at Annapolis, Maryland, on May 2, 1784, a short time before 



Documents z2> 



he sailed as envoy to France, and all the terms between them 
were fully agreed upon, and on Dec. 28, 1785, Jefferson's 
confidential agent gave Mr. Lemen one hundred dollars of 
his funds, and in the summer of 1786 with his wife and 
children he removed and settled in Illinois, at New Design, 
in what is now Monroe County. A few years after his settle- 
ment in Illinois Mr. Lemen was baptized into the Baptist 
church, and he finally became a minister of the people of 
that faith. He eventually became a great organizer of 
churches and by that fact, reinforced by his other wonderful 
traits as a natural leader, he fully realized Jefferson's fondest 
dreams and became a noted leader. 

In 1789 Jefferson returned from his mission to France 
and his first thought was of Mr. Lemen, his friend in Illinois, 
and he lost no time in sending him a message of love and 
confidence by a friend who was then coming to the West. 
^After Jefferson became President of the United States he 
retained all of his early affection for Mr. Lemen, and when 
S. H. Biggs, a resident of Illinois, who was in Viriginia on 
business and who was a warm friend of both Jefferson and 
Mr. Lemen, called on him in 1808, when President, he in- 
quired after him with all the fondness of a father, and when 
told of Mr. Lemen's purpose to soon organize a new church 
on a strictly anti-slavery basis Jefferson sent him a message 
to proceed at once to form the new church and he sent it 
a twenty-dollar contribution. Acting on Jefferson's sug- 
gestion, Mr. Lemen promptly took the preliminary steps 
for the final formation of the new church and when con- 
stituted it was called the Baptist Church of Canteen Creek 
and Jefferson's contribution, with other funds, were given 
to it. This church is now called the Bethel Baptist Church, 
and it has a very interesting history. 

But in view of the facts and circumstances the church 
might properly have been called the "Thomas Jefferson 
Church," and what volumes these facts speak for the 
beneficent and marvelous influence which Mr. Lemen had 
over Jefferson, who was a reputed unbeliever. The great 
love he had for James Lemen not only induced him to tol- 
erate his churches but he became an active adviser for their 
multiplication. 

^''The original agreement between Jefferson and Mr. 
Lemen was strictly confidential; on the part of Jefferson, 
because, had it been known, his opponents would have 



34 



The Jefferson-Lemen Compact 



said he sent paid emissaries to Illinois and Indiana to 
shape matters to his own interests, and the extreme South 
might have opposed his future preferment, if it were known 
that he had made an anti-slavery pact with his territorial 
agents; and it was secret on the part of Mr. Lemen because 
he never wished Jefferson to give him any help and his 
singularly independent nature made him feel that he would 
enjoy a greater liberty of action, or feeling at least, if it 
were never known that his plans and purposes to some extent 
were dictated and controlled by another, not even by his 
great and good friend Jefferson; so the agreement between 
them was strictly private. ^°And there was another cir- 
cumstance which finally determined Mr. Lemen to always 
preserve the secrecy, and that was that some of Mr. Jeffer- 
son's opponents shortly before Mr. Lemen's death informed 
him that he had become an absolute unbeliever, and this so 
impressed his mind that he wept bitterly for fear, if the fact 
should ever be known that he had an agreement w^ith Jeffer- 
son, that they would say that he was in alliance with an un- 
believer in the great life work he had performed, and he 
exacted a promise from his sons, his brother-in-law, Rev. 
Benjamin Ogle, and Mr. Biggs, the only persons who then 
knew of the agreement, that they would never divulge it 
during his lifetime, a pledge they all religiously kept, and in 
later years they told no one but the writer and a few other 
trusted friends who have not, and never will, betray them. 
But the writer advised them to carefully preserve all the 
facts and histories we are now writing and to tell some of 
their families and let them publish them at some future time, 
as much of the information is of public interest. 

As to Jefferson's being an absolute unbeliever, his critics 
were mistaken. He held to the doctrine that the mind and 
the reason are the only guides we have to judge of the 
authenticity and credibility of all things, natural and divine, 
and this appears to have been the chief basis on which Jef- 
ferson's critics based their charges against him. But while 
these harsh criticisms in some measure misled Mr. Lemen 
he never lost his great love for Jefferson and to the latest 
day of his life he always mentioned his name wath tenderness 
and affection. I had hoped to complete this history in one 
chapter, but there appear to be notes and materials enough 
for another. By oversight the notes of Mr. Lemen's war 
record were not given me, but he honorably served an enlist- 



Documents 35 



ment of two 3'ears under Washington, and returned to his 
regiment at the siege of Yorktown and served until the sur- 
render of CornwaUis, but did not re-enlist. 



Chapter II. 

At their last meeting at Annapolis, Maryland, on May 
2, 1784, when the final terms in their agreement as to Mr. 
Lemen's mission in Illinois were made, both he and Jefferson 
agreed that sooner or later, there w^ould be a great contest 
to try to fasten slavery on the Northwestern Territory, and 
this prophesy was fully verified in spite of the fact that Con- 
gress, at a later period, passed the Ordinance of 1787 forever 
forbidding slavery; two contests arose in Illinois, the first 
to confirm the territory and the second to confirm the state 
to freedom. 

^^From 1803 for several successive congresses Gen. 
William Henry Harrison, then governor of the Northwestern 
Territory, w^th his legislative council petitioned that body 
to repeal the anti-slavery clause in the Ordinance of 1787 
and to establish slavery in the territory, but without avail, 
and finally recognizing that the influence of Rev. James 
Lemen, Sr., was paramount with the people of Illinois, he 
made persistent overtures for his approval of his pro-slavery 
petitions, but he declined to act and promptly sent a mes- 
senger to Indiana, paying him thirty dollars of the Jefferson 
fund given him in Virginia to have the church and people 
there sign a counter petition, meanwhile circulating one in 
Illinois among the Baptists and others; and at the next 
session of Congress Gen. Harrison's pro-slavery petitions for 
the first time encountered the anti-slavery petitions of the 
Baptist people and others, and the senate, before which the 
matter went at that time, voted to sustain the anti-slavery 
petitions and against the repeal of the anti-slavery clause in 
the Ordinance of 1787, and for the time the contest ended. 

^^The next anti-slavery contest was in the narrower 
limits of the territory of Illinois, and it began with the events 
which called the Bethel Baptist Church into existence. 
When Mr. Lemen received President Jefferson's message in 
1808 to proceed at once to organize the next church on an 
anti-slavery basis and make it the center from which the 
anti-slavery forces should act to finally make Illinois a free 
state, he decided to act on it; but as he knew it would create 



The Jefferson-Lemen Compact 



2L division in the churches and association, to disarm criticism 
he labored several months to bring them over to the anti- 
slavery cause, but finding that impossible he adopted Jef- 
ferson's advice and prepared to open the contest. The 
first act was on July 8, 1809, in regular session of the Richland 
Creek Baptist Church, where the people had assembled from 
all quarters to see the opening of the anti-slavery contest, when 
Rev. James Lemen, Sr., arose and in a firm but friendly 
Christian spirit declared it would be better for both sides to 
separate, as the contest for and against slavery must now 
open and not close until Illinois should become a state. 
A division of both the association and the churches followed, 
but finally at a great meeting at the Richland Creek Baptist 
Church in a peaceful and Christian manner, as being the 
better policy for both sides, separation was adopted by 
unanimous vote and a number of members withdrew, and on 
Dec. 10, 1809, they formed the "Baptist Church at Canteen 
Creek," (now Bethel Baptist Church). Their articles of 
faith were brief. They simply declared the Bible to be 
the pillar of their faith, and proclaimed their good will 
for the brotherhood of humanity by declaring their church 
to be "The Baptist Church of Christ, Friends to Humanity, 
denying union and communion with all persons holding 
the doctrine of perpetual, involuntary, hereditary slavery." 
-^The church, properly speaking, never entered politics, 
but presently, when it became strong, the members all formed 
what they called "The Illinois Anti-Slavery League," and 
it was this body that conducted the anti-slavery contest. 
It always kept one of its members and several of its friends 
in the Territorial Legislature, and five years before the con- 
stitutional election in 1818 it had fifty resident agents — 
men of like sympathies — in the several settlements through- 
out the territory quietly at work, and the masterly manner 
in which they did their duty was shown b}^ a poll which 
they made of the voters some few weeks before the election, 
which, on their side only varied a few votes from the official 
count after the election. "With people familiar with all the 
circumstances there is no divergence of views but that the 
organization of the Bethel Church and its masterly anti- 
slavery contest saved Illinois to freedom; but much of the 
credit of the freedom of Illinois, as well as for the balance 
of the territory, was due to Thomas Jefferson's faithful and 
eflScient aid. True to his promise to Mr. Lemen that slavery 



Documents 



37 



should never prevail in the Northwestern Territory or any 
part of it, he quietly directed his leading confidential friends 
in Congress to steadily defeat Gen, Harrison's pro-slavery 
petitions for the repeal of the anti-slavery clause in the 
Ordinance of 1787, and his friendly aid to Rev. James 
Lemen, Sr., and friends made the anti-slavery contest of 
Bethel Church a success in saving the state to freedom. 

In the preparation of this history, to insure perfect 
reliability and a well-connected statement, I have examined, 
selected, and read the numerous family notes myself, dicta- 
ting, while my secretary has done the writing, and after all 
was completed we made another critical comparison with 
all the notes to insure perfect accuracy and trustworthiness. 

I have had one copy prepared for Rev. James Lemen, 
Jr., and one for myself. I should have added that of the 
one hundred dollars of the Jefferson funds given him Rev. 
James Lemen, Sr., used none for his family, but it was all 
used for other good causes, as it was not Mr. Lemen's in- 
tention to appropriate any of it for his own uses when he 
accepted it from Jefferson's confidential agent in Virginia. 

in. "HOW ILLINOIS GOT CHICAGO" 

(Communication from Joseph B. Lemen, under head of "Voice of the 
People," in The Chicago Tribune some time in December, 1908.) 

O'Fallon, 111., Dec. 21, 1908. 

Editor of the Tribune: — In October, 1817, the Rev. 
James Lemen, Sr., had a government surveyor make a map 
showing how the boundary of Illinois could be extended 
northward so as to give a growing state more territory 
and a better shape and include the watercourses by which 
Lake Michigan might be connected with the Mississippi 
river. With these advantages marked in the margin of 
the map, he gave his plan and map to Nathaniel Pope, our 
territorial delegate in congress, to secure the adoption of the 
plan by that body, which he did. 

The facts were noted in the Rev. J. M. Peck's pioneer 
papers and others, and in commenting on them some of our 
newspapers have recently charged Nathaniel Pope with 
carelessness in not publishing Mr. Lemen's share in the 
matter, but unjustly. Mr. Lemen and Mr. Pope were 
ardent friends, and as the former was a preacher and desired 
no office, and he wished and sought for no private pre- 



38 The Jefferson-Lemen Compact 

ferment and promotion, he expressly declared that as Mr, 
Pope had carried the measure through Congress with such 
splendid skill he preferred that he should have the credit 
and not mention where he got the map and plan. 

Rev. Benjamin Ogle, Mr. Lemen's brother-in-law, and 
others mentioned this fact in some of their papers and notes. 
The omission was no fault of Mr. Pope's and was contrary 
to his wish. 

The present site of Chicago was included in the territory 
added, and that is how Illinois got Chicago. Pioneer. 



IV. ADDRESS TO THE FRIENDS OF FREEDOM 

(From The Illinois Intelligencer, August 5, 1818.) 

The undersigned, happening to meet at the St. Clair 
Circuit Court, have united in submitting the following Ad- 
dress to the Friends of Freedom in the State of Illinois. 

Feeling it a duty in those who are sincere in their op- 
position to the toleration of slavery in this territory to use 
all fair and laudable means to effect that object, we there- 
fore beg leave to present to our fellow-citizens at large the 
sentiments which prevail in this section of our country on 
that subject. In the counties of Madison and St. Clair, 
the most populous counties in the territory, a sentiment 
approaching unanimity seems to prevail against it. In 
the counties of Bond, Washington, and Monroe a similar 
sentiment also prevails. We are informed that strong 
exertions will be made in the convention to give sanction to 
that deplorable evil in our state; and lest such should be the 
result at too late a period for anything like concert to take 
place among the friends of freedom in trying to defeat it, 
we therefore earnestly solicit all true friends to freedom 
in every section of the territory to unite in opposing it, 
both by the election of a Delegate to Congress who will 
oppose it and by forming meetings and preparing remon- 
strances against it. Indeed, so important is this question 
considered that no exertions of a fair character should be 
omitted to defeat the plan of those who wish either a tem- 
porary or unlimited slavery. Let us also select men to the 
Legislature who will unite in remonstrating to the general 
government against ratifying such a constitution. At a 
crisis like this thinking will not do, acting is necessary. 



Documents 39 



From St. Clair county — Risdon Moore, Benjamin 
Watts, Jacob Ogle, Joshua Oglesby, William Scott, Sr., 
William Biggs, Geo. Blair, Charles R. Matheny, James 
Garretson, and ^^William Kinney. 

From Madison County — Wm. B. Whiteside. 

From Monroe County — James Lemen, Sr. 

From Washington — Wm. H. Bradsby. 



V. RECOLLECTIONS OF A CENTENNARIAN 

By Dr. Williamson F. Boyakin, Blue Rapids, Kansas 
(1807-1907) 
{The Standard, Chicago, November 9, 1907.) 

The Lemen family was of Irish [Scotch] descent. They 
were friends and associates of Thomas Jefferson. It was 
through his influence that they migrated West. When the 
Lemen family arrived at what they designated as New 
Design, in the vicinity of the present town of Waterloo, 
in Monroe county, twenty-five miles southeast of the city 
of St. Louis, Illinois was a portion of the state of Virginia. 
[Ceded to U. S. two years previous.] 

Thomas Jefferson gave them a kind of carte blanche for 
all the then unoccupied territory of Virginia, and gave them 
$30 in gold to be paid to the man who should build the first 
meeting house on the western frontier.^- This rudely-con- 
structed house of worship was built on a little creek named 
Canteen [Quentin], just a mile or two south of what is now 
called CoUinsville, Madison county, Illinois. 

In the mountains of Virginia there lived a Baptist min- 
ister by the name of Torrence. This Torrence, at an As- 
sociation in Virginia, introduced a resolution against slavery. 
In a speech in favor of the resolution he said, "All friends of 
humanity should support the resolution." The elder James 
Lemen being present voted for it and adopted it for his motto, 
inscribed it on a rude flag, and planted it on the rudely-con- 
structed flatboat on which the family floated down the 
Ohio river, in the summer of 1790 [1786], to the New Design 
location. ^^ 

The distinguishing characteristic of the churches and 
associations that subsequently grew up in Illinois [under the 
Lemen influence] was the name "The Baptized Church of 
Christ, Friends to Humanity." 



40 The Jefferson-Lemen Compact 

One of these Lemen brothers, Joseph, married a Kinney, 
sister to him who was afterwards governor [Heutant governor] 
of the state. This Kinney was also a Baptist preacher, a 
Kentuckian, and a pro-slavery man.^^ When the canvass 
opened in 1816, 17, and 18 to organize Illinois into a state, 
the Lemens and the Kinneys were leaders in the canvass. 
The canvass was strong, long, bitter. The Friends to 
Humanity party won. The Lemen brothers made Illinois 
what it is, a free state. 

The Lemens were personally fine specimens of the genus 
homo — tall, straight, large, handsome men — magnetic, 
emotional, fine speakers. James Lemen [Junior] was con- 
sidered the most eloquent speaker of the day of the Baptist 
people. Our present educated preachers have lost the hold 
they should have upon the age in the cultivation of the in- 
tellectual instead of the emotional. Religion is the motive 
power in the intellectual guidance of humanity. These 
Lemens were well balanced in the cultivation of the intellect 
and the control of the emotions. They were well educated 
for their day, self-educated, great lovers of poetry, hymnal 
poetry, having no taste for the religious debates now so 
prevalent in some localities. They attended no college 
commencements [?]. James Lemen, however, at whose 
grave the monument is to be erected, was for fourteen con- 
secutive years in the Senate of the State Legislature, and 
would have been elected United States senator, but he would 
not accept the position when oflFered. [This was James, Jr., 
not his father.] 

Personally of fine taste, always well and even elegantly 
dressed, they rode fine horses, owned fine farms, well cul- 
tivated. They lived in rich, elegant style [.?]. They were 
brimful and overflowing with spontaneous hospitality. 
All were married, with several sisters, and were blessed with 
large families. Almost all of them, parents and descendants, 
have passed away. Old Bethel, the church house, and the 
graveyard, in sight of the old mound, are yet there. 

Note. — Dr. Boyakin was a physician. Baptist minister, 
and newspaper editor for many years in Illinois. He de- 
livered the G. A. R. address at Blue Rapids, Kansas, on 
his one hundredth birthday. He has confused some things 
in these "recollections," especially the story concerning the 
origin of the name "Friends to Humanity," but for his 
years his statements are unusually in accord with the facts. 



Documents 41 



VI. IN MEMORY OF REV. JAMES LEMEN, SR. 

By a Well-Wisher 
{The Standard, Chicago, November 16, 1907) 

When James Lemen's early anti-slavery Baptist churches 
went over to the cause of slavery, it looked as if all were lost 
and his anti-slavery mission in Illinois had failed. At that 
crisis Mr. Lemen could have formed another sect, but in his 
splendid loyalty to the Baptist cause he simply formed an- 
other Baptist church on the broader, higher grounds for 
both God and humanity, and on this high plane he unfurled 
the banner of freedom. In God's good time the churches 
and state and nation came up to that grand level of right, 
light, and progress. 

Of James Lemen's sons, under his training, Robert was an 
eminent Baptist layman, and Joseph, James, Moses, and 
Josiah were able Baptist preachers. [William, the "way- 
ward" son, also became a useful minister in his later years.] 
Altogether they were as faithful a band of men as ever stood 
for any cause. This is the rating which history places 
upon them. The country owes James Lemen another debt 
of gratitude for his services to history. He and his sons 
were the only family that ever kept a written and authentic 
set of notes of early Illinois; and the early historians. Ford, 
Reynolds, and Peck, drew many of their facts from that 
source. These notes embraced the only correct histories of 
both the early Methodist and the early Baptist churches in 
Illinois and much other early matter.^^ 

Note. — This communication was probably from Dr. 
W. F. Boyakin. 

VII. STATEMENT REGARDING JOSEPH B. LEMEN 

"Joseph B. Lemen has written editorially for The 
New York Sun, The New York Tribune, The Chicago Tribune, 
and The Belleville Advocate. 

"During the McKinley campaign of 1896 he wrote 
editorials from the farmers' standpoint for a number of the 
metropolitan newspapers of the country at the personal 
request of Mark Hanna. 

"He also wrote editorials for the metropolitan newspapers 
during the first Lincoln campaign." 

— Editor, Belleville Advocate. 
December, 1912. 



42 



The Jefferson-Lemen Compact 



VIII. HISTORIC LETTER OF REV. J. M. PECK ON 
THE OLD LEMEN FAMILY NOTES 

(From Belleville Advocate, January, 1908) 
(Clipping in I.B.H.C, KU) 

To the Editor of the Belleville Advocate: 

We herewith send the Advocate a copy of a letter of 
the eminent historian and great Baptist divine, the late 
Rev. J. M. Peck, to his old ministerial associate, the late 
Rev. James Lemen, concerning the anti-slavery labors of 
his father. Rev. James Lemen, Sr., and also his views as to 
the old Lemen family notes, which will perhaps interest 
your readers. It seems quite appropriate for the Advocate 
to print these old pioneer matters, as it is one of the old pio- 
neer landmarks. Rev. James Lemen took the paper when 
it started, under its first name, and it has come to his family 
or family members at his old home ever since. 

By order of the Family. 
[Joseph B. Lemen.] 

REV. JAMES LEMEN, SR., AND HIS ANTI-SLAVERY 

LABORS 
Rev. James Lemen, 

Ridge Prairie, Illinois 

Dear Brother: At my recent very enjovable visit at your 
house you made two important requests, which I will now 
answer. The first was as to my estimate or judgment of 
your father's anti-slavery labors, and the second was as to 
what disposition you had better make of your vast stock of 
old family notes and papers. Considering your questions 
in the order named, I will write this letter, or more properly, 
article, under the above heading of "Rev. James Lemen, Sr., 
and His Anti-Slavery Labors," as the first question is the 
most important, and then in conclusion I will notice the 
second. 

In considering your father's anti-slavery labors, I will 
proceed upon the facts and evidence obtained outside your 
old family notes, as it might be presumed that the trend of 
the notes on that matter would be partial. Not that the 
facts I would use are not found in your family notes, for they 
appear to cover about every event in our early state and 
church history; but that I would look for the facts elsewhere 
to prove the matter, and indeed I can draw largely from mv 



Documents 43 



own knowledge of the facts upon which your father's success 
as an anti slavery leader rested. Not only from my own 
personal observation, but scores of the old pioneers, your 
father's followers and helpers, have given me facts that fully 
establish the claim that he was the chief leader that saved 
Illinois to freedom. Not only the state, but on a wider 
basis the evidence is very strong that Rev. James Lemen, Sr., 
largely shared in saving the Northwestern Territory for free 
states. This was the estimate that General [Governor] 
William Henry Harrison placed on his labors in his letter to 
Captain Joseph Ogle after his term of the governorship 
had expired. ^^In his letter to Captain Ogle he said that, 
though he and Mr. Lemen were ardent friends, he [Lemen] 
set his iron will against slavery here and indirectly made 
his influence felt so strongly at Washington and before 
Congress, that all efforts to suspend the anti-slavery clause 
in the Ordinance of 1787 failed. 

But James Lemen was not only a factor which saved the 
anti-slavery clause in the Ordinance of 1787, but there is no 
doubt, after putting all the facts together, . . . that 
his anti-slavery mission to the Northwestern Territory was 
inspired by the same cause which finally placed the anti- 
slavery clause in the Ordinance, and that Lemen's mission 
and that clause were closely connected. Douglas, Trumbull, 
and Lincoln thought so, and every other capable person who 
had [been] or has been made familiar with the facts. 

Many of the old pioneers to whom the facts were known 
have informed me that all the statements as to Rev. James 
Lemen's anti-slavery teaching and preaching and forming 
his anti-slavery churches, and conducting the anti-slavery 
contest, and sending a paid agent to Indiana to assist the 
anti-slavery cause, were all true in ever}' particular; and so 
the evidence outside and independently of that in the Lemen 
family notes is conclusive that Mr. Lemen created and 
organized the forces which finally confirmed Illinois, if not 
the Northwestern Territory, to freedom. But there was 
just one fact that made it possible for the old pioneer leader 
practically single handed and alone to accomplish such 
results; and that was because President Jefferson's great 
power was behind him, and through his secret influence 
Congress worked for the very purpose that Jefferson, more 
than twenty years be-fore, had sent Lemen to Illinois, or the 
Northwestern Territory, to secure, namely, the freedom of the 



44 The Jefferson-Lemen Compact 

new country. The claim that Mr. Lemen encompassed 
these great results would, of course, be ridiculous were it 
not known that the power of the government through Jef- 
ferson stood behind him. Hence Douglas, Trumbull, and 
others are correct, and I quite agree with them, that w^hen 
you publish the old family notes on the matter, if, for reasons 
you state, you do not wish to publish Jefferson's letters to 
your father which concern the subject, it will be sufficient 
just to say he acted by and under his advice and aid, and 
people will accept it, as it is self-evident, because it is pre- 
posterous to hold that Mr. Lemen could have accomplished 
such results without some great power behind him. In 
conclusion, it is my judgment that your father's anti-slavery 
labors were the chief factor leading up to the free state 
constitution for Illinois. 

Now as to your old family notes. They are valuable. 
In their respective fields, they embrace by far the most 
trustworthy history in our state. They ought to be pre- 
served, but your generous nature will not permit you to 
say no; and your friends, as you say, are carrying them off, 
and they will all be lost, and presently the vast and priceless 
collection will have disappeared, which will be an unspeak- 
able loss. Like your friends. Dr. B. F. Edwards and J. 
M. Smith, I would advise you to make copies of all to keep 
for use, and then give Smith the old collection to keep and 
hold in St. Louis in his safe, and leave them there for good. 
This will save you an infinite amount of worry, as people 
will not trouble you to see the mere copies. It would be a 
good disposition to make of them, and thus bury that dan- 
gerous element in many of the old letters bearing on the anti- 
slavery contest of 1818. With some of those interested in 
that contest, in fifty years from this time, the publication 
of these letters would create trouble between the descendants 
of many of our old pioneer families. 

There is a danger lurking in many of these old collec- 
tions where you would not suspect it. In 1851, when I 
wrote the first or preliminary part of the Bethel church his- 
tory from your old family notes, now generally referred to 
as the history of the "Jefferson-Lemen Anti-Slavery Pact," 
and part second as the history proper of the church in the 
letter which w^as simply the history from its organization in 
1809 to my pastorate of 1851, I carefully omitted all mention 
of the anti-slavery contest which gave the church its origin. 



Documents 45 



I did this so that that part of its history could then he 
recorded in the church book, which could not have been done 
had I mentioned the anti-slavery contest; because the bitter- 
ness of that period had not yet fully disappeared; and the full 
history of the church, with the causes creating, and the re- 
sults flowing from its organization, if recorded or published 
then, would have aroused considerable ill feeling against 
the church in some parts of the state. So part second, or 
the history proper, was only recorded at that time. But 
having lately completed part third of the Bethel church 
history, showing the results of its organization, I sent it 
with a copy of part first, or the history of the Jefferson Lemen 
Anti-Slavery Pact, to our worthy and noble Christian 
brother, the Bethel church clerk, James H. Lemen, and the 
other brother whose name you suggested, and they can 
place them in safe keeping somewhere until after your old 
family notes are published, and then they should be recorded 
in the church book with the church history proper and all the 
papers be placed with the other church papers. I shall also 
send them a copy of this letter to be finally placed with the 
church papers, as it is in part the history of the founder of 
that church, all parties agreeing that your father created, 
though of course he did not formally constitute, it. The 
old church, when all the facts become known, will become 
noted in history, as it stands as the monument of the contest 
which began by putting the anti-slavery clause in the 
Ordinance of 1787, and which concluded by making Illinois 
and her neighboring sisters free states. 

As to the more valuable letters in your family notes and 
collections, I have kept them securely for you. Douglas' 
and Lincoln's letters take very correct views as to your 
father's anti-slavery labors, and Jefferson's tw-o letters to 
your father disclose his great friendship for him, and show 
that he placed the greatest confidence and trust in him. 
Poor Lovejoy's letter reads as if he had a presentment of 
his coming doom. There is no more interesting feature in 
all your old family notes than Lincoln's views at your many 
meetings with him, and your copy of his prayer is beautifuL 
Some of his views on Bible themes are very profound; but 
then he is a very profound thinker. It now looks as if he 
would become a national leader. Would not he and your 
father have enjoyed a meeting on the slavery question.? I 
put all the letters with the other papers you gave me in a 



46 The Jefferson-Lemen Compact 

safe in St. Louis, in a friend's care, where I sometimes put 
my papers. Your son, Moses, was with me and the check 
is given in his name. This will enable you to tell your 
friends that the papers are not now in your custody, and they 
will not bother you to see them. Hoping to see you soon, 
I remain as ever. Fraternally yours, 

Rock Spring, 111. July 17, 1857. J. M. Peck. 



PIONEER LETTERS 
IX. SENATOR DOUGLAS'S LETTER 

(From Belleville Advocate, April 10, 1908. Clipping, I.B.H.C.,— Kll) 

Springfield, Illinois. Mar. 10, 1857 
Rev. James Lemen, 

Collinsville, Illinois, 

Dear Sir: — In a former letter I wrote you fully as to my 
views as to the " Jeff"erson-Lemen Anti-Slavery Pact," and 
that there is no doubt but that the anti-slavery contest of 
your father. Rev. James Lemen, Sr., and the organizing of 
Bethel church as one of the results, eventually led to our 
free state constitution. I also thank you again for the 
privilege of reading Jefferson's letters to your father, and 
other papers in connection with the matter, but desire to add 
a thought or two, or more properly expound [expand] some 
points in my recent letter. 

The anti-slavery pact or agreement between the two men 
and its far reaching results comprise one of the most intensely 
interesting chapters in our national and state histories. Its 
profound secrecy and the splendid loyalty of Jefferson's 
friends which preserved it, were alike necessary to the success 
of the scheme as well as for his future preferment; for had it 
been known that Jefferson had sent Lemen as his special 
agent on an anti-slavery mission to shape matters in the 
territories to his own ends, it would have wrecked his pop- 
ularity in the South and rendered Lemen's mission worse 
than useless. 

It has always bten a mystery why the pressing demands 
of Governor Harrison and his Council for the repeal of the 
anti-slavery clause in the Ordinance of 1787 which excluded 



Documents 47 



slavery from the Northwest Territory, could make no head- 
way before a encession [?] of pro-slavery Congress; but the 
matter is now clear. The great Jefferson, through his 
confidential leaders in Congress [held that body back, until 
Mr. Lemen, under his orders], had rallied his friends and 
sent in anti-slavery petitions demanding the maintenance 
of the clause, when the Senate, where Harrison's demands 
were then pending, denied them. So a part of the honor of 
saving that grand clause which dedicated the territory to 
freedom, belongs to your father. Indeed, considering Jef- 
ferson's ardent friendship for him and his admiration and 
approval of his early anti-slavery labors in Virginia, which 
antedated the Ordinance of 1787 by several years, there is 
but little doubt but that your father's labors were a factor of 
influence which quickened if it did not suggest to Jefferson 
the original purpose which finally resulted in putting the 
original clause in the Ordinance. 

This matter assumes a phase of personal interest with 
me, and I find myself, politically, in the good company of 
Jefferson and your father. With them, everything turned on 
whether the people of the territory wanted slavery or not. 
Harrison and his council had informed Congress that the 
people desired it; but Jefferson and Lemen doubted it, and 
when the latter assisted in sending in great anti-slavery 
petitions, Jefferson's friends in Congress granted the people 
their wish, and denied Harrison's pro-slavery demands. 
That is, the voice and wishes of the people in the territory 
were heard and respected, and that appears to me to be the 
correct doctrine. 

Should you or your family approve it, I would suggest 
that the facts of the " Jefferson-Lemen Anti-Slavery Pact" 
be fully written up and arranged for publication, since they 
embrace some exceedingly important state and national 
history, and, in fact, will necessitate a new or larger personal 
history of Jefferson, as these facts will add another splendid 
chapter to the great story of his marvellous career. If you 
think the publication of Jefferson's letters and suggestions 
to your father would rather tend to dwarf the legitimate 
importance of his great religious movement in the formation 
of our early churches, on account of the wonderful political 
results of the "anti-slavery pact" it would be sufficient t) 
command belief everywhere just to simply state that in his 
anti-slavery mission and contest he acted under Jefferson's 



48 The Jefferson-Lemen Compact 

advice and help; because the consequences were so im- 
portant and far reaching that it is self-evident he must 
have had some great and all-prevailing power behind him. 

I was greatly pained to learn of your illness, in your 
last letter, but hope this will find you comfortable. 

Yours in confidence, 

S. A. Douglas. 

I wrote this letter in Springfield, but by an over-sight 
neglected to mail it there. But if you write me in a fortnight, 
direct to Springfield, as I expect to be there then. 

Yours Secv. [sic] D. 



X. ANNOUNCEMENT BY J. B. LEMEN 

(From Belleville Advocate, April 17, 1908. Clipping, I.B.H.C.,— Kll) 

It was our purpose in this letter [communication] to 
send the Advocate a copy of one of Abraham Lincoln's 
letters, and some other matter from him and Douglas, from 
the old family notes of Rev. James Lemen never yet pub- 
lished; but increased illness, and their greater length, pre- 
vented making the copy. In their place, however, we send 
a copy each of Governor Edward's and Congressman Sny- 
der's letters. The prophetic utterances in this letter as to 
what would fall on Mexico's treachery and slavery's in- 
solence, were so literally fulfilled that they emphasized anew 
Congressman Snyder's wonderful capabilities in sizing up 
public questions correctly and reading the coming events 
of the future, and prove him to have been a statesman of 
wonderful powers. The next, which will be the concluding 
article in this series, will contain the copy of Lincoln's 
letter and the other matter above referred to. 

The typos made one or two slight errors in Senator 
Douglas's letter in last week's issue. For "expound" the 
reader should have read "expand," and at another point the 
letter should read that "Jefferson, through his confidential 
leaders in Congress, held that body back until Mr. Lemen, 
under his orders, had rallied his friends and sent in anti- 
slavery petitions, etc." 

[Joseph B. Lemen.] 



Documents 49 



XI. GOV. NINIAN EDWARDS TO REV. JAMES 
LEMEN. 

(From Belleville Advocate, April 17, 1908. Clipping, I.B.H.C— Kll) 

Vandalia, 111., Dec. 24, 1826. 
Rev. James Lemen, 

Collinsville, Illinois, 
Dear Sir: — Having great respect for your influence and 
reposing perfect confidence in your capable judgment on 
public affairs, I would be very much pleased to have you call 
as soon as you arrive here, as I desire to have your views and 
advice on some important matters. It is my hope, as it will 
be my pride, that the term upon which I enter shall be 
marked vvith a degree of educational interest and progress 
not hitherto attained in our young commonwealth; and I 
wish to ask for your counsel and aid in assisting to impress 
upon the General Assembly the importance of such subjects, 
and the necessity of some further and better legislation on our 
school matters; and I also wish to consult with you in regard 
to the matter of the proposed Illinois and Michigan Canal. 
Sincerely your friend, 

NiNiAN Edwards. 



XII. HON. ADAM W. SNYDER TO REV. JAMES 
LEMEN. 

(From Belleville Advocate, April 17, 1908. Clipping, I.B.H.C— Kll) 

City of Washington, Jan. 5, 1838. 
Rev. James Lemen, 

[Collinsville, Illinois] 
My Dear Friend: — To the letter which I wrote you a few 
days since I wish to add that the members of the Illinois 
delegation in Congress have read the letter you recently 
wrote me, and they are all willing and ready to assist in 
pressing the cause of the class of claimants whom you 
mentioned upon the attention of the government for a more 
liberal and generous allowance of lands. I have no further 
news to communicate, except that I believe Mexico's treach- 
ery and insolence will sooner or later call down upon her 
a severe chastisement from this country; and that our South- 
ern friends in Congress are growing exasperatingly and 
needlessly sensitive on the slavery question, claiming that 



50 The Jefferson-Lemen Compact 

Jefferson's views would sustain their positions, not know- 
ing the splendid secret of your father's (Rev. James Lemen, 
Sr.) anti-slavery mission under Jefferson's orders and ad- 
vice, which saved Illinois and we might say the Northwest 
Territory, to freedom. In fact, the demands of slavery, if 
not controlled by its friends, will eventually put the country 
into a mood that will no longer brook its insolence and greed. 
Yours in esteem and confidence, 

A. W. Snyder. 

XIII. ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S LETTER 

Belleville Weekly Advocate, April 24, 1908 

The following letter and remarks from Abraham Lincoln, 
hitherto unpublished, comprise the fifth letter of the series of 
old "Pioneer Letters" which Mr. J. B. Lemen of O'Fallon 
is sending to the Advocate. — Ed. 

Springfield, Illinois. March 2, 1857. 
Rev. James Lemen, 

[O'Fallon, Illinois,] 

Friend Lemen: Thanking you for your warm apprecia- 
tion of my views in a former letter as to the importance in 
many features of your collection of old family notes and 
papers, I will add a few words more as to Elijah P. Lovejoy's 
case. His letters among your old family notes were of more 
interest to me than even those of Thomas Jefferson, written 
to your father. Of course they [the latter] were exceedingly 
important as a part of the history of the "Jefferson-Lemen 
Anti-Slavery Pact," under w^hich your father, Rev. James 
Lemen, Sr., as Jefferson's anti-slavery agent in Illinois, 
founded his anti-slavery churches, among which was the 
present Bethel church, which set in motion the forces which 
finally made Illinois a free state, all of which was splendid; 
but Lovejoy's tragic death for freedom in every sense marked 
his sad ending as the most important single event that ever 
happened in the new world. 

Both your father and Lovejoy were pioneer leaders in the 
cause of freedom, and it has always been difficult for me to 
see why your father, w^ho was a resolute, uncompromising, 
and aggressive leader, who boldly proclaimed his purpose 
to make both the territory and the state free, never aroused 
nor encountered any of that mob violence which both in 



Documents 51 



St. Louis and Alton confronted or pursued Lovejoy, and 
which finally doomed him to a felon's death and a martyr's 
crown. Perhaps the two cases are a little parallel with 
those of John and Peter. John was bold and fearless at the 
scene of the Crucifixion, standing near the cross receiving 
the Savior's request to care for his mother, but was not 
annoyed; while Peter, whose disposition to shrink from 
public view, seemed to catch the attention of members of 
the mob on every hand, until finally to throw public attention 
off, he denied his master with an oath; though later the grand 
old apostle redeemed himself grandly, and like Lovejoy, 
died a martyr to his faith. Of course, there was no similarity 
between Peter's treachery at the Temple and Lovejoy's 
splendid courage when the pitiless mob were closing around 
him. But in the cases of the two apostles at the scene 
mentioned, John was more prominent or loyal in his presence 
and attention to the Great Master than Peter was, but the 
latter seemed to catch the attention of the mob; and as 
Lovejoy, one of the most inoffensive of men, for merely 
printing a small paper, devoted to the freedom of the body 
and mind of man, was pursued to his death; while his older 
comrade in the cause of freedom. Rev. James Lemen, Sr., 
who boldly and aggressively proclaimed his purpose to make 
both the territory and the state free, was never molested 
a moment by the minions of violence. The madness and 
pitiless determination with which the mob steadily pursued 
Lovejoy to his doom, marks it as one of the most unreasoning 
and unreasonable in all time, except that which doomed the 
Savior to the cross. 

If ever you should come to Springfield again, do not fail 
to call. The memory of our many "evening sittings" here 
and elsewhere, as we called them, suggests many a pleasant 
hour, both pleasant and helpful. Trulv vours 

A. Lincoln. 

XIV. THE LEMEN MONUMENT AND REV. 
LEMEN'S PART IN EARLY ILLINOIS HISTORY 

(From Belleville Advocate, Tuesday, April 6, 1909. Clipping in 
I.B.H.C— Kll) 

The monument to be erected by the Baptist people of 
Illinois and others at the grave of Rev. James Lemen, Sr., 
near Waterloo in Monroe county, is not only to honor his 



52 The Jefferson-Lemen Compact 

memory as a revolutionary soldier, territorial leader, Indian 
fighter, and founder of the Baptist cause in Illinois, but it is 
also in remembrance of the fact that he was the companion 
and co-worker with Thomas Jefferson in setting in motion 
the forces which finally recorded the anti-slavery clause in 
the Ordinance of 1787, which dedicated the great Northwest 
territory to freedom and later gave Illinois a free state 
constitution. 

Only recently the Society of the Sons of the Revolution 
in Chicago, after a critical examination of James Lemen's 
military and civil record, by unanimous vote, appropriated 
twenty-five dollars for his monument fund; and we give 
below a copy of the papers which they used and which will 
interest our readers, the first being Gen. Ainsworth's letter: 

WAR DEPARTMENT 
Adjutant General's Office 

Washington, Feb. 13, 1908. 
The records show that James Lemen served as private 
in Captain George Wall's Company of the Fourth Virginia 
Regiment, commanded at various times by Major Isaac 
Beall and Colonels James Wood and John Neville in the 
Revolutionary war. Term of enlistment, one year from 
March 3, 1778. 

F. C. AiNswoRTH, Adjt. Gen. 
("In January 1779, James Lemen had his term of en- 
listment extended for two years and was transferred to 
another regiment. After his term expired he rejoined his old 
regiment and served through the siege at Yorktown. He was 
in several engagements.") [J. B. L.] 



XV. REV. JAMES LEMEN, SR. 

(Written by Rev. John M. Peck, in 1857. Published in Belleville Advocate, 
April 6, 1909. Clipping in I.B.H.C— Kll) 

Rev. James Lemen, Sr., a son of Nicholas Lemen and 
Christian Lemen, his wife, was born at the family home near 
Harper's Ferry, Virginia, on November 20, 1760. He 
acquired a practical education and in early manhood married 
Miss Katherine Ogle, of Virginia, and they reared a family. 
He enlisted for a year as a soldier of the Revolutionary War, 
on March 3, 1778, but had his term extended to two years, 



Documents 



53 



and was in several engagements. Sometime after his en- 
listment expired he rejoined his old comrades and served 
through the siege at Yorktown. 

From childhood, in a singular manner, James Lemen was 
the special favorite and idol of Thomas Jefferson, who was a 
warm friend of his father's family. Almost before Mr. 
Lemen had reached manhood, Jefferson would consult him 
on all matters, even on great state affairs, and afterwards 
stated that Mr. Lemen's advice always proved to be sur- 
prisingly reliable. 

Our subject was a born anti-slavery leader, and by his 
Christian and friendly arguments he induced scores of 
masters in Virginia to free their slaves; this quickly caught 
Jefferson's attention and he freely confessed that Mr. 
Lemen's influence on him had redoubled his dislike for slavery 
and, though himself a slaveholder, he most earnestly de- 
nounced the institution. The following paragraphs from 
a letter he wrote to James Lemen's brother, Robert, who 
then lived near Harper's Ferry, Virginia, on September 10, 
1807, will disclose that Mr. Lemen's influence was largely 
concerned in connection with Jefferson's share in the Or- 
dinance of 1787, in its anti-slavery clause. The paragraph 
is as follows: — 

"If your brother, James Lemen, should visit Virginia 
soon, as I learn he possibly may, do not let him return until 
he makes me a visit. I will also write him to be sure and 
see me. ^Among all my friends who are near, he is still a 
little nearer. I discovered his worth when he was but a 
child and I freely confess that in some of my most important 
achievements his example, wish, and advice, though then 
but a very young man, largely influenced my action. This 
was particularly true as to whatever share I may have had 
in the transfer of our great Northwestern Territory to the 
United States, and especially for the fact that I was so well 
pleased with the anti-slavery clause inserted later in the 
Ordinance of 1787. Before any one had ever mentioned the 
matter, James Lemen, by reason of his devotion to anti- 
slavery principles, suggested to me that we (Virginia) make 
the transfer and that slavery be excluded; and it so impressed 
and influenced me that whatever is due me as credit for my 
share in the matter is largely, if not wholly, due to James 
Lemen's advice and most righteous counsel. ^^His record 
in the new country has fully justified my course in inducing 



54 The Jefferson-Lemen Compact 

him to settle there with the view of properly shaping events 
in the best interest of the people. If he comes to Virginia, 
see that he calls on me." 

James Lemen did not visit Virginia and President Jef- 
ferson did not get to see him, but his letters to him showed 
what a great aflPection he had for his friend and agent. On 
May 2, 1778 [1784], at Annapolis, Md., Thomas Jefferson 
and James Lemen made their final agreement under which 
he was to settle in Illinois to shape matters after Jefferson's 
wishes, but always in the people's interest and for freedom, 
and particularly, to uphold the anti-slavery policy promised 
by Jefferson and later confirmed by the anti-slavery clause 
in the Ordinance of 1787 which principle both Jefferson and 
Mr. Lemen expected would finally be assailed by the pro- 
slavery power, and the facts confirmed their judgment. In 
1786 Mr. Lemen with his wife and young family settled 
finally at New Design, now in Monroe county. ^He was 
a judge under the early Territorial law. He finally united 
with the Baptist church and immediately set about collecting 
the Baptists into churches, having the first church constituted 
at his house. 

Mr. Lemen created the first eight Baptist churches in 
Illinois, having them especially declare against slavery and 
intemperance. When General William Henry Harrison 
became Governor, he and his Territorial Council went 
over to pro-slavery influences and demands, and carried 
Mr. Lemen's seven churches, which he had then created, 
with them. For some months he labored to call them to 
anti-slavery grounds, but failing, he declared for a division 
and created his eighth church, now Bethel church, near 
Collinsville, on strictly anti-slavery grounds; and this event 
opened the anti-slavery contest in 1809 which finally in 1818 
led to the election of an anti-slavery Convention which gave 
Illinois a free state constitution. ^-Jefferson warmly ap- 
proved Mr. Lemen's movement and sent his new church 
twenty dollars, which, with a fund the members collected 
and gave, was finally transferred to the church treasury 
without disclosing Jefferson's identity. This was done in 
order not to disturb his friendly relations with the extreme 
South. But Jefferson made no secret of his antipathy for 
slavery, though unwilling that the fact should be known that 
he sent James Lemen to the new country especially 
to defend it against slavery, as he knew it would arouse 



Documents 55 



the resentment of the extreme pro-slavery element 
against both him and his agent and probably defeat 
their movement. 

2^James Lemen also first suggested the plan to extend 
the boundary of Illinois northward to give more territory 
and better shape, and had a government surveyor make a 
map showing the great advantages and gave them to Na- 
thaniel Pope, our territorial delegate, asking him to present 
the matter, which he did, and Congress adopted the plan. 
The extension gave the additional territory for fourteen 
counties and Chicago is included. 

James Lemen was a noted Indian fighter in Illinois, 
ever ready with his trusty rifle to defend the homes of the 
early settlers against the savage foe, and in every way he 
fully justified Jeff^erson's judgment in sending him to look 
after the best interests of the people in the new territory. 

Mr. Lemen possessed every moral and mental attribute 
in a high degree, and if any one was more marked than an- 
other it was his incomparable instinct against oppression, 
which his wonderful anti-slavery record accentuated as his 
chief endowment, though in all respects he was well equipped 
for a leader among men. That instinct, it might be said, 
fixed his destiny. At Jefi^erson's request he settled in the 
new territory to finally oppose slavery. That was before the 
Ordinance of 1787 with its anti-slavery clause, but Mr. 
Lemen had Jefferson's assurance beforehand that the 
territory should be dedicated to freedom; though they both 
believed the pro-slavery power would finally press for its 
demands before stated, and the facts proved they were right. 
The reasons which necessitated the secrecy of the Jefferson- 
Lemen anti-slavery pact of May 2, 1784, under which Mr. 
Lemen came to Illinois on his anti-slavery mission at Jef- 
ferson's wish, and which was absolutely necessary to its 
success at first, no longer exists; and the fear of James 
Lemen's sons that its publication would so overshadow his 
great church work in Illinois with Jefferson's wonderful 
personalit}^, as to dwarf his merits, is largel}^ groundless. 
Senator Douglas, who with others is familiar with all the 
facts, says that when the matter is fully published and well 
known, it will give to both Mr. Lemen and Jefferson their 
proper shares of credit and fame; and, while it will add a new 
star to Jefferson's splendid fame, it will carry James Lemen 
along with him as his worthy co-worker and companion. 



56 The Jefferson-Lemen Compact 

The subject of our sketch died at his home near Water- 
loo, Monroe county, on January 8th, 1823, and was buried 
in the family cemetery near by. 



XVI. OLD LEMEN FAMILY NOTES, JAMES LEMEN 
HISTORY, AND SOME RELATED FACTS 

(MS. Document in I.B.H.C. — C102. By Jos. B. Lemen) 

In 1857, to save the old "Lemen Family Notes" from 
loss by careless but persistent borrowers. Dr. B. F. Edwards, 
of St. Louis, and Rev. J. M. Peck, advised Rev. James Lem- 
en, Jr., to make copies of all and then give the original stock 
to a friend whom they named to keep as his own in a safe 
vault in St. Louis, if he would pay all storage charges. But 
at that time he only gave the most important ones to Rev. 
J. M. Peck to place temporarily in a safe in St. Louis where 
he sometimes kept his own papers; though some years later 
he acted on their advice and making copies of all papers 
and letters of any value, gave the whole original stock to the 
party mentioned (we do not recall his name, but it is among 
our papers) [possibly the J. M. Smith mentioned in Dr. 
Peck's communication to James Lemen, Jr., July 17, 1857] 
and he placed them in the safe. Shortly after this their 
holder died, and they passed into the hands of others who 
removed them to another safe somewhere in St. Louis; 
but having no further title in the papers, and having copies 
of all for use, the family finally lost all traces of the papers 
and the parties holding them, and have only heard from them 
two or three times in more than 40 years. 

A few years ago, when a history of Rev. James Lemen, 
Jr., and his father, Rev. James Lemen, Sr., was in contem- 
plation, a reputed agent of the parties whom he then claimed 
held the old family notes, informed us that the family could 
have them at any time they wished; and we promised some 
of our friends who wished to see them that after we had used 
them in connection with the proposed history, the old stock 
of papers would be placed where they could see and copy 
them, if they wished. It was intended to have a few of the 
more important letters photographed for the James Lemen 
history; though it was said that some years before some one 
had a few of them photographed and they were so indistinct 
as to be worthless; but we hoped for better results. But 



Documents 



57 



it finally developed that the reputed agent would expect us 
to pay him (contrary to our first impressions) quite a round 
sum of money for the restoration and use of the papers 
before he would deliver them to us. This awakened sus- 
picions as to his reliability and a detective, to whom we 
sent his name and number for investigation, informed us 
that no such man could be found; and undoubtedly he was 
some dishonest person seeking to obtain money under false 
pretenses. And so the family, as for many years past, now 
knows nothing as to the parties who hold the papers or 
where they are. A singular fatality seems to have awaited 
all the papers placed at Dr. Peck's disposal or advice. His 
own papers were generally destroyed or lost, and the old 
"Lemen Family Notes" placed some years after his death, 
partly as he had advised, cannot be found. But while 
Dr. Peck's lost papers are a distinct and irreparable loss, no 
loss is sustained in the misplacement of the old Lemen notes, 
as every line or fact of any value in them was copied and the 
copies are all preserved; and nearly all the more important 
ones have been published, except a very few, including Rev. 
James Lemen's interviews with Lincoln, as written up by Mr. 
Lemen on ten pages of legal cap paper, and that paper will 
probably be published soon, if it is not held specially for 
the James Lemen history. 

As to that history, it will be delayed for some time, as 
the writer, who was expected to see to its preparation, was 
named by the State Baptist Convention as a member of the 
Baptist State Committee to assist with the James Lemen 
monument; and much of the matter intended for the history 
was published in connection with the labors of the State 
Committee. One object of the history was to secure or to 
influence that degree of recognition of the importance of the 
services of Rev. James Lemen, Sr. and his sons, with a few 
co-workers of the latter, in the early history and interests 
of both the Baptist cause and the State, on the part of the 
Baptists, to which the family thought them entitled. But 
since the Baptists, the "Sons of the Revolution," and others 
have placed a monument at the grave of the old State leader 
and Baptist pioneer, the Rev. James Lemen, Sr., it is felt that 
the object for making the history has already been in part 
realized. Another circumstance which has delayed it, is 
the poor health of the writer; so the prospect is that the 
making of the history will be delayed for some time. 



58 The Jefferson-Lemen Compact 

This is written entirely from memory, as the papers and 
dates to which we refer are not before me, but we will retain 
a copy and if there proves to be any errors in this one, 
we will have them corrected. There was such a demand for 
them that some of Dr. Peck's, Lovejoy's, Douglas's, Lin- 
coln's and some other letters were published, and som'e of 
them are included in the papers we send. 

Some years ago some one claimed that the old family 
notes had been found, which led to statements in the papers 
that they would soon be placed where people could see and 
read them; but it proved to be a mistake. For the loss of 
the papers the family do not believe there was any fault with 
the parties originally holding them, as in fact they had the 
right to hold them where they pleased, according to the 
agreement; but that from sudden deaths and other cir- 
cumstances, they were misplaced. 

It should be added that every paper of any value, 
which was given to the St. Louis parties to hold was copied 
and the copies preserved, except mere personal, friendship 
letters, and of these there was quite a large stock; also that 
much of Dr. Peck's writings and many letters of his and 
others were loaned out and could not be given to the St. 
Louis parties to keep, but all of any real value have been 
copied or published, except the Lemen-Lincoln interviews 
and some others, and that even some of these copies are 
loaned out, among them copies of letters from Dr. Peck, 
Douglas, Lincoln, Lovejoy, if I recall correctly, and others; 
though the facts or information in them have already been 
published, except such facts as will be held for the James 
Lemen history, and we have copies of them, so nothing will 
be lost. 

(Signed) Joseph B. Lemen. 
O'Fallon, Illinois, 
January 10, 1911. 

[N. B. The above communication accompanied the 
gift of the walnut chest made by the elder James Lemen at 
Ft. Piggott, which was sent to the custodian of the Baptist 
Historical Collection at Shurtleff College, early in the year 
1913 — Compiler.] 



REFERENCES 

1. See p. 26. 

2. Reynolds "My Own Times" and "Pioneer History of Illinois." 

3. See "Territorial Records of Illinois" (Illinois State Historical 

Library, Publication, III.), and compare p. 54 post. 

4. See Biographical sketches in "Lemen Family History." 

5. See pp. ?)?>, 53. 

6. See pp. 27, 28. 

7. See pp. 23, 42, 56. 

8. Peck, J. M., "Annals of the West," in loco. 

9. See p. 54 post, and Hinsdale, "Old Northwest." 

10. Alvord, "Cahokia Records," Introduction. 

11. Reynolds, "My Own Times," p. 208. 

12. McMaster, "People of United States," II: 30, 31; III: 108; St. Clair 

Papers. 

13. Blake, "History of Slavery," p. 431. 

14. See p. 29. 

15. See p. 30, and compare No. 16 below. 

16. Blake, "History of Slavery," in loco. 

17. See pp. 35, 36, 43. 

18. See p. 53. 

19. See p. 30. 

20. See p. 30, and compare, Patterson, " Early Illinois," Fergus Histori- 

cal Coll., No. 14, pp. 141-2. 

21. Seepp. 30, 35. 

22. Reynolds, "My Own Times," p. 170. 

23. See p. 36. 

24. See p. 55, and compare reference No. 19. 

25. See p. 37. 

26. See "Centennial History of Madison Co.," I: 52-55. 

27. Seep. 38. 

28. Seep. 47. 

29. See p. 50. 

30. See p. 34. 

31. See p. 41. 

32. See p. 54. 

33. Cf. Smith, J. A., "History of the Baptists," p. 40; Benedict, "His- 

tory of the Baptists," II: 246-8. 

34. Seep. 39. 

35. See pp. 42, 56 and Peck, J. M., "Father Clark," in loco. 



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